HARMONISM 


AND 


CONSCIOUS  EVOLUTION 


WALSTON 


ALVMNVS  BOOK  FYND 


HARMONISM 


AND 


CONSCIOUS  EVOLUTION 


OTHER  WORKS  BY  THE  SAME  AUTHOR 


POLITICAL  AND  PHILOSOPHICAL 

X.    ARISTODEMOCRACY.    From  the  Great  War  back  to  Moses, 
Christ,  and  Plato. — (Murray,  1916  and  1920.) 

3.    TRUTH. — An  Essay  in  Moral  Reconstruction. — (Cambridge 
University  Press,  1919.) 

3.  THE  ENGLISH-SPEAKING  BROTHERHOOD  AND  THE 

LEAGUE  OF  NATIONS.— (Cambridge  University  Press, 
1919.) 

4.  PATRIOTISM:    NATIONAL  AND  INTERNATIONAL.— 

1917. 

5.  WHAT  GERMANY  IS  FIGHTING  FOR.— 1917. 

6.  THE  NEXT  WAR.— Wilsonism  and  Anti-Wilsonism.— 1918. 

?.    THE    POLITICAL    CONFESSION    OF    A    PRACTICAL 
IDEALIST.— A  Pamphlet.    (Murray,  1911.) 

8.  THE  EXPANSION  OF  WESTERN  IDEALS  AND  THE 

WORLD'S  PEACE.— 1899. 

9.  THE  BALANCE  OF  EMOTION  AND  INTELLECT.— 1878. 
10.    THE    SURFACE    OF   THINGS:     THREE   CONVERSA- 
TIONAL STORIES.— 1895. 

xx.    WHAT  MAY  WE  READ.— No.  IV  of  the  Ethics  of  the  Surface 
Series.    1897.    (John  Murray,  1917.) 

12.  THE  JEWISH  QUESTION  AND  THE  MISSION  OF  THE 

JEWS.— 1894. 

13.  EUGENICS,  CIVICS,  AND  ETHICS.— A  Lecture.    (Cam- 

bridge University  Press,  1920.) 


WORKS  ON  ART  AND  ARCHEOLOGY 

ESSAYS  ON  THE  ART  OF  PHEIDIAS  (Cambridge  University 
Press,  1885);  THE  WORK  OF  JOHN  RUSKIN  (Harper  & 
Brothers,  1893) ;  THE  STUDY  OF  ART  IN  UNIVERSITIES 
(Harper  &  Brothers,  1896);  THE  ARGIVE  HER^EUM  (with 
others) (Hough ton,  Mifflin  &  Co.,  1902-1905);  ART  IN  THE  NINE- 
TEENTH CENTURY  (Cambridge  University  Press,  1903)  ;  HER- 
CULANEUM :  PAST,  PRESENT,  AND  FUTURE  (with  Leonard 
Shoobridge)  (Macmillan  &  Co.,  1908) ;  GREEK  SCULPTURE 
AND  MODERN  ART  (Cambridge  University  Press,  1913). 


HARMONISM 


AND 


CONSCIOUS   EVOLUTION 


BY  SIR  CHARLES  WALSTON  (WALDSTEIN) 

M.A.,  LITT.U.  (CANTAB.  AND  COLUMBIA  UNIV.,  NEW  YORK),  PH.D.  (HEIDELBERG), 
HON.  fcirr.D.  (TRIM.  COLL.,  DUBLIN) 

FELLOW     OF     KING'S     COLLEGE,     CAMBRIDGE;     SOMETIME      READER      IN     CLASSICAL 

ARCHEOLOGY,  DIRECTOR   OF   THE    FITZWILLIAM   MUSEUM   AND    SLADB   PROFESSOR   OF 

FINE    ART,   CAMBRIDGE,    AND     DIRECTOR    OF    THE   AMERICAN     SCHOOL   OP   CLASSICAL 

STUDIES,    ATHENS 


Untwisting  all  the  chains  that  tic 
The  hidden  soul  of  harmony. 

MILTON  :  L  Allegro. 

Regnuni  Optuui. 


"Progress  must  t>e  rationally  imaginative 
neither  fatalistic  nor  fantastic." 


NEW  YORK 
THE  MACMILLAN  COMPANY 

1922 


M 


TO 

F    E.  W. 


PREFACE 

IT  has  been  my  ambition  and  my  hope,  in  the  writing 
of  this  book,  that  it  should  prove  to  be  intelligible  to 
all  those  general  readers  who,  without  being  special- 
ists in  philosophy,  are  interested  in  the  problems  of 
life  and  thought,  and  are  conversant  with  our  ordinary 
English  language.  I  have  therefore  avoided,  as  far 
as  possible,  all  technicalities  and  technical  terms. 
As  I  have  maintained,  especially  in  the  Second  Part 
of  this  book  when  dealing  with  Conscious  Evolution, 
I  deem  it  essential  to  the  advance  of  human  know- 
ledge that  each  period  should  clearly  establish  in  its 
own  contemporary  language,  most  fully  expressive 
of  the  mentality  of  each  age,  the  highest  state  of 
knowledge  to  which  it  has  attained  ;  and  that  it 
therefore  is  essential  that  such  thought  be  not  trans- 
ferred to,  or  translated  into,  the  terminology  of 
previous  ages  possessing  their  own  mentality  and 
differing  from  that  of  later  ages.  I  have  therefore  also 
avoided  putting  my  own  thoughts  into  the  language 
of  earlier  or  contemporary  thinkers,  who  have  viewed 
the  whole  problem  or  parts  of  it  from  different  points 
of  view,  in  different  facets  of  the  same  body  of  truth. 

The  main  lines  of  this  inquiry  were  formulated  in 
my  mind  over  forty-six  years  ago,  when,  after  con- 
tinuing my  academic  studies  in  America,  at  Heidelberg 
for  three  years  under  Kuno  Fischer  and  Professor 
Wundt  (following  the  latter  to  his  psycho-physical 
laboratory  at  Leipzig  in  1876),  I  was  engaged  in 
writing  a  dissertation  on  the  relation  between  Kant 
and  Hume. 

After  settling  in  London  in  the  autumn  of  that  year, 


viii  PREFACE 

while  occupied  with  my  dissertation,  I  was  led  further 
afield  into  an  inquiry  into  the  history  of  Scepticism. 
It  then  became  clear  to  me  that  the  only  escape  from 
Scepticism  lay  in  the  direction  of  aesthetics  and  its 
fundamental  principles  in  life  and  mind,  and  I  decided 
to  enlarge  and  deepen  my  studies  on  the  historical 
side  of  aesthetics  in  the  history  of  Art,  more  especially 
Greek  Art,  which  had  formed  a  part  of  my  studies 
and  my  examination  for  the  Doctorate  at  Heidelberg. 
By  a  singular  coincidence  I  was  invited  to  give  a 
course  of  lectures  on  "  The  History  of  Greek  Sculpture  " 
by  the  Greek  Department  of  King's  College,  London, 
in  the  Elgin  Room  at  the  British  Museum  in  June 
1878,  and  after  further  archaeological  studies  in  Italy 
and  Greece  in  that  year  and  the  next  I  was  appointed 
Lecturer  and  then  Reader  in  Classical  Archaeology 
at  Cambridge  in  1880.  From  that  time  onward, 
Greek  Art  and  Archaeology,  leading  on  to  the  general 
History  and  Theory  of  Art,  became  the  centre  of  my 
academic  work  and  duties. 

But  during  all  these  years,  partly  in  my  writings 
on  various  subjects,  as  well  as  in  my  lectures  in  the 
University  and  elsewhere,  some  of  the  leading  ideas 
of  the  Philosophy  of  Harmonism  have  been  touched 
upon.  It  was  not  until  1915,  during  the  Great  War, 
that,  in  dealing  with  ethical  and  political  problems 
in  my  book  Aristodemocracy ,  etc.,1  I  anticipated  the 
publication  of  some  aspects  of  the  main  theory.  In 
the  Preface  of  the  second  American  edition  of  that 
book  *  occurs  the  following  passage  :  "  The  sketch 
for  the  reconstruction  of  civilised  morals  here  given 
is  only  part  of  a  general  philosophical  system — the 
ethical  and  political  part — of  which  again  it  only 
forms  the  prolegomena.  The  final  and  complete 

1  Aristodemocracy— from  the  Great  War  back  to  Moses,  Christ,  and 
Plato  (John  Murray,  1916-20). 
3  p.  xi. 


PREFACE  ix 

elaboration  of  the  system,  to  which  I  gave  the  title 
'  Harmonism,'  I  have  reserved  for  the  closing  years 
of  my  life.  For,  though  the  essential  plan  of  this 
work  was  already  drawn  up  and  established  as  early  as 
1876,  the  professional  conditions  of  my  life  since  those 
early  days  necessarily  diverted  me  from  this  task.'1 

Realising  the  same  urgency  for  the  early  publica- 
tion of  the  whole  system  in  its  unity  and  continuity  in 
the  immediate  present,  I  gave  a  course  of  lectures 
on  "  Prolegomena  to  the  Philosophy  of  Harmonism  " 
in  the  University  of  Cambridge  during  the  autumn 
and  winter  of  1920-1.  A  considerable  part  of  the 
subject  was  thus  given  in  a  different  form  in  those 
lectures. 

But  there  exists,  finally,  a  still  more  personal 
motive  for  the  publication  of  this  book  at  the  present 
moment,  and  in  its  present  form.  During  all  these 
years,  while  constantly  made  aware,  by  many  among 
those  with  whom  I  came  into  intimate  contact,  that 
they  were  struggling  under  the  serious  disadvantage 
of  not  possessing  a  complete  and  convincing  theory 
of  life  and  mind  which  could  ultimately  direct  them 
in  thought  and  action,  and  give  to  them  the  inestim- 
able blessing  of  peace  of  mind  and  freedom  from 
distressing  doubt,  on  the  other  hand  I  found  in 
myself  that  this  philosophy  of  Harmonism  freed  me 
from  such  disconcerting  and  depressing  doubt,  and 
enabled  me  to  think  and  act  with  peace  and  directness, 
and  with  the  underlying  confidence  of  complete 
reconciliation  and  harmony  between  the  immediate 
and  ultimate  aims  of  life  and  thought.  The  Real  and 
the  Ideal,  the  Practical  and  the  Theoretical,  the 
Useful  and  the  Good,  Truth  and  Beauty,  self-interests 
and  the  claims  of  others,  our  actual  life  and  the  life 
of  religious  aspiration,  were  not  severed  in  irrecon- 
cilable conflict,  but  were  harmonised  into  peaceful 
unity,  full  of  vitality  and  hope.  Moreover,  as  the 


x  PREFACE 

conviction  which  moved  me  at  the  beginning  of  the 
war  to  anticipate  the  publication  of  a  special  portion 
of  the  system,  so  urgently  required  during  that  tragic 
period,  was  the  need  of  a  reconstitution  of  ethics  and 
religion,  the  inadequacy  and  insincerity  of  which  in 
those  days  and  for  many  years  before  were  ultimately 
accountable  for  the  advent  of  the  great  world-catas- 
trophe ;  so  now  I  feel  convinced  that  the  same  need 
for  a  reconstruction  of  our  fundamental  views  of  life 
and  mind  is  similarly,  and  even  more  urgently,  pressing 
with  regard  to  every  aspect  of  individual  and  collec- 
tive life.  This  applies  not  only  to  our  ethical  and 
religious  outlook,  but  to  the  problem  of  reconciling 
Capital  and  Labour,  the  modification  of  democracy, 
if  it  is  to  survive,  of  the  State  and  international 
relationships,  and  many  other  problems  of  modern 
life  and  thought. 

What  is  needed  is  a  new  and  convincing  outlook 
upon  the  whole  of  modern  life  and  thought,  and  a 
reform  of  our  ethics,  leading  to  the  reform  of  religion. 
We  must  bring  before  the  eyes  of  modern  man  the 
true,  clear,  and  adequate  ideal  of  the  perfect  man 
and  the  perfect  life  dependent  upon  our  best  thought 
and  our  most  complete  realisation  of  what  is  best  in 
the  actual  life  and  in  the  actual  mind  of  man,  as  it 
has  been  evolved  through  ages,  and  out  of  the  full 
realisation  of  which  we  can  look  forward  to  the  future 
and  fashion  it  in  harmony  with  our  conception  of 
the  Best. 

The  first,  or  general,  part  of  the  book  deals  with 
the  origin  and  dominance  of  the  aesthetic,  or  har- 
monistic,  instinct  and  principle  in  the  ordinary  life 
of  man,  and  traces  its  origin  back  to  the  earliest 
organic  life  in  the  animal  and  even  in  the  plant  world. 
The  second  or  special  part  applies  Harmonism  to  the 
higher  systematic  knowledge  of  man  in  the  various 
departments  of  Science,  Art,  Pragmatics,  Ethics, 


PREFACE 


XI 


Politics,  and  Religion,  and  develops  the  principle  of 
Conscious  Evolution  in  the  life  of  reasoning  beings, 
individual  and  collective. 

I  have  added  in  an  appendix  a  reprint  of  a  lecture 
on  "  The  Future  of  the  League  of  Nations,1'  given  at 
the  University  of  Cambridge  in  August  1920,  and 
an  article  on  "  America  and  the  League  of  Nations  " 
from  the  Fortnightly  Review  of  March  1921,  as  well  as 
two  French  articles,  the  one  on  "  Respublica  Littera- 
torum,"  in  Les  Lettres  of  April  1920,  the  other  on 
"  La  Societe  des  Nations  contre  1'Anarchie  Nationale 
et  Internationale,"  with  a  short  introduction  by  the 
late  M.  fimile  Boutroux,  in  La  Renaissance  Politique, 
April  24,  1920,  because,  having  published  my  previous 
writings  on  that  subject  from  1899  onwards  in  a 
recent  book  on  The  English-speaking  Brotherhood  and 
the  League  of  Nations,1  I  desire  to  supplement  what 
I  have  there  said  by  these  recent  contributions  to 
that  all-important  subject. 

I  must  again — as  on  several  previous  occasions — 
express  my  sincere  thanks  to  my  friend  and  colleague, 
Prof.  J.  B.  Bury,  for  revising  the  manuscript  and 
making  numerous  important  corrections  and  valuable 
suggestions.  As  a  leading  historian,  thinker,  and 
scholar,  as  well  as  a  sympathetic  friend  of  long  stand- 
ing, I  have  attached  the  greatest  weight  to  his 
opinion.  My  wife  has  again  rendered  me  valuable 
help,  and  again  my  friend  Sir  George  Leveson  Gower 
has  revised  the  proofs  and  has  offered  pertinent 
criticism.  Finally,  I  must  thank  Mr.  Harold  B.  Hart 
and  Miss  Elsie  Day  for  much  clerical  assistance, 
under  the  exceptionally  difficult  conditions  of  the 
writing  and  printing  of  this  book. 

THE  AUTHOR. 

NEWTON  HALL, 
NEWTON,  CAMBRIDGE. 
April  1922. 

1  Cambridge  University  Press,  1919 


TABLE  OF  CONTENTS 


PREFACE  .......         Vii 

PART   I 
GENERAL 

CHAPTER 

I.     THE   AESTHETIC   INSTINCT  AND    FACULTY       .  3 

II.     SYMMETRY    AND    ASYMMETRY.       THE    PRIN- 

CIPLE   OF   HARMONY   .  .12 

III.  CONSCIOUSNESS   AND    SELF-CONSCIOUSNESS          25 

IV.  THE    HARMONISTIC    PRINCIPLE    IN    EARLIEST 

FORMS  OF  ORGANIC  AND  SENTIENT  LIFE         30 

V.  HARMONIOTROPISM  IN  HUMAN  LIFE  AND  THE 
DOMINANCE  OF  THE  AESTHETIC  ATTITUDE 
OF  MIND  .....  52 

VI.     THE   ACTIVE   INFLUENCE   OF  THE  AESTHETIC 

OR   HARMONISTIC   PRINCIPLE  .  .         62 

VII.     THE    DOMINANCE    OF    THE    AESTHETIC    ATTI- 

TUDE   OF   MIND    IN    CULTURED    LIFE        ,         75 

PART   II 
SPECIAL 

INTRODUCTION  .....          8^ 

I.     EPISTEMOLOGY  .  .  .  .06 

(a)    MATHEMATICS   AND    LOGIC       .  .       IOI 

xiii 


xiv  CONTENTS 

CHAPTER 

EPISTEMOLOGY — continued 

(b)  CONVICTION  .  .  .  .IO3 

(c)  SCIENCE        .  .  .  .  .108 

(d)  CONSCIOUS  EVOLUTION  THROUGH 

SCIENCE  .....        IO9 

(e)  SPECIAL   SCIENTIFIC   STUDIES  .       113 
(/)    CLASSIFICATION    OF    SCIENCES            .        114 

(g)    RESEARCH,     INVENTION     AND      DIS- 
COVERY  OF   NEW   TRUTHS  .        Il6 

(h)    EXPOSITION    OF   SCIENTIFIC    TRUTH       119 

II.     AESTHETICS,    ART 

INTRODUCTION  .  .  .  .123 

ELEMENTARY    PRINCIPLES  .  .124 

A.  FORM — PURE  ART          .  .  .  .126 

SELECTIVE   ARTS           .             .             .  .        130 

THE   WORK    OF   ART   .              .             .  -137 

CREATIVE   ART               .             .              .  .142 

MUSIC       .             .             .             .             .  .142 

THE      ART      OF      ORNAMENTATION  OR 

DECORATION              .             .             .  .146 

B.  ARCHITECTURE I  57 

C.  THE  ARTS  OF  "  MEANING  "  (SCULPTURE, 

PAINTING,  THE    LITERARY   AND  DRA- 
MATIC    ARTS,     MUSIC,    THE     ART    OF 

LIVING) 161 

GENERAL   PRINCIPLES  .  .  .       l6l 

(a)  SCULPTURE  .  .  .  .1/9 

(b)  PAINTING    .  .  .  .  .193 


CONTENTS  xv 

»AC» 

(c)  THE    LITERARY   ARTS     .  .  .       2l8 

LYRICAL   POETRY       .  .  .221 

THE   DRAMA     ....       228 
THE   PROSE   DRAMA.  .  .       233 

PROSE    LITERATURE   (FICTION)   .       237 
THE   SHORT   STORY  .  .  .       247 

(d)  MUSIC    (AS   AN   ART   OF   MEANING)  .       249 

THE    OPERA  .  .  .  .256 

THE    MELODRAMA   .  .  .       26 1 

D.  BEAUTY    IN    NATURE      ....       262 

E.  THE   ART   OF    LIVING       ....       264 

III.  PRAGMATICS  .  .  .  .  .27! 

IV.  ETHICS 275 

DUTY   TO    THE    FAMILY          .  .  .289 

DUTY  TO  THE  IMMEDIATE  COMMUNITY 
IN  WHICH  WE  LIVE,  AND  SOCIAL 
DUTIES  .  .  .  .  .291 

DUTIES    TO   THE   STATE         .  .  .       303 

DUTY   TO    HUMANITY  .  .  .       304 

THE    DUTIES    WHICH    ARE    NOT    SOCIAL 

AND   THE   IMPERSONAL   DUTIES  .      306 

DUTY   TO   OUR   SELF  .  .  .       309 

DUTY   TO   THINGS   AND   ACTS         .  -313 

DUTY   TO   GOD  .  .  .  .316 

CONCLUSION.      ETHOGRAPHY          .  '323 

V.     POLITICS 331 

FRATERNITY       .  .  .  .  -336 

LIBERTY 337 

EQUALITY 339 

INTERNATIONAL  AND  SUPERNATIONAL 

RELATIONS   .....   36$ 


xvi  CONTENTS 

CHAWBR  PACB 

VI.     RELIGION  ......       373 

VII.     EDUCATIONAL   EPILOGUE  .  .  .381 


APPENDIX 

I.     THE  FUTURE  OF  THE  LEAGUE  OF  NATIONS   .  40 1 

II.     RESPUBLICA  LITTERATORUM  :    R^PONSE  DE 

SIR   CHARLES   WALSTON        »  .  .422 

III.  LA  SOCIETE    DES   NATIONS   CONTRE   L*ANAR- 

CHIE   NATIONALS    ET    INTERNATIONALE  426 

IV.  AMERICA  AND  THE  LEAGUE  OF  NATIONS       .  444 

INDEX 453 


PART   I 
GENERAL 


CHAPTER    I 

THE    .ESTHETIC    INSTINCT   AND    FACULTY 

THE  aim  of  all  works  of  art  is  to  respond  to  the 
aesthetic  instinct  of  man  and  to  produce  aesthetic 
pleasure.  In  so  far  aesthetics  is  clearly  distinguish- 
able from  logic,  epistemology,  or  systematised  know- 
ledge in  science,  ethics,  pragmatics,  and  religion. 
I  may  say  here  that,  as  we  proceed  (above  all  in 
Part  II)  we  shall  establish  more  clearly  the  corre- 
lation of  these  departments  of  human  knowledge  to 
one  another,  and  more  especially  their  relation  to 
aesthetics.  In  giving  this  summary  definition  of  art 
I  have  not  defined  either  the  term  aesthetics  itself 
or  the  term  instinct,  and  still  less  the  term  pleasure. 
I  may  also  warn  the  reader  that,  at  the  present  stage 
of  our  inquiry,  we  are  not  concerned  when  we  use 
the  common  and  complex  term  "  pleasure  "  with 
qualifying  our  conception  of  aesthetics  under  the 
general  heading  of  a  hedonistic  theory  of  life  and 
thought  or  anything  of  the  kind.  As  regards  the 
term  aesthetics,  in  contradistinction  to  the  other 
departments  of  thought,  its  distinguishing  feature  is 
that  in  all  objects  with  which  it  is  concerned  the 
form  is  essential  to  the  matter.  In  this,  by  the  way, 
we  have  been  anticipated  by  Aristotle.  In  every 
work  of  art  or  in  every  aesthetic  attitude  of  mind 
towards  the  objects  perceived  or  reflected  upon,  the 
form  in  which  the  subject-matter  of  perception  or 

3 


4      THE  JESTHETIC  INSTINCT  AND  FACULTY 

feeling  or  thought  presents  itself  is  essentially  and 
indissolubly  bound  up  with  the  matter  ;  while  in  all 
other  departments  of  mental  processes  the  subject- 
matter  is  essential,  and  we  can  always  conceive  it 
as  capable  of  being  apprehended  in  some  different 
form  as  a  vehicle  of  perception,  feeling,  or  reflection. 
In  aesthetic  perception,  feeling,  or  reflection,  though 
the  form  may  not  be  the  exclusive  element  of 
stimulation  in  all  processes,  it  always  remains 
the  essential  and  central  factor  in  the  determina- 
tion of  these  perceptions,  as  well  as  feelings  and 
reflections. 

Moreover,  this  faculty  of  the  human  mind,  of  the 
human  senses — in  fact,  of  the  whole  human  organism 
— is  primary  (not  secondary)  and  elemental,  in  every 
respect  equivalent  to  the  other  faculties  which  under- 
lie perception  of  outer  objects  and  produce  knowledge, 
thought,  truth,  and  science  ;  or  which  contribute  to 
self-preservation  in  providing  for  the  physical  interests 
of  life,  to  what  we  call  utility  or,  in  social  and  political 
life,  concerns  the  desirable  relation  of  man  to  his 
fellow-men — what  is  good  for  him  as  well  as  for 
human  society — in  ethics  ;  or  even,  finally,  in  his 
relation  to  the  supernatural  powers  and  to  his 
strivings  to  satisfy  his  religious  instincts  and  aspira- 
tions. We  may  even  find  as  we  proceed  that  (to  use 
the  terminology  of  Kant  as  he  applies  it  to  Practical 
Reason)  there  is  a  Primacy  inherent  in  the  aesthetic 
instinct  which  may  ultimately  lead  or  refer  the 
satisfaction  and  development  of  all  these  other 
instincts  and  aims  back  to  the  aesthetic  instinct  as 
the  primary  element  out  of  which  the  others  are 
evolved. 

I  am  fully  aware  that  this  main  thesis  of  the 
Philosophy  of  Harmonism  may,  in  this  unqualified 
statement,  appear  to  many  readers  in  the  light  of  a 
paradox.  De  gustibus  non  est  disputandum  is  uni- 


PRIMACY   OF   AESTHETIC   INSTINCT          5 

versally  accepted  as  so  unquestionably  true,  that  it 
is  admitted  as  one  of  the  current  commonplaces,  if 
not  truisms.  It  is  commonly  believed  that  all 
aesthetic  perceptions  and  preferences — all  that  is 
related  to  art  and  taste — are  essentially  subjective 
and  personal,  compared  with  those  perceptions  and 
thoughts  based  upon  truth  and  capable  of  logical  or 
scientific  proof,  or  with  those  judgments  concerning 
utility  or  the  ethically  good  which  are  all  supposed 
to  be  objective  and  impersonal  in  character.  But 
I  hope  to  show  that  aesthetic  perceptions,  emotions, 
and  principles  are  objective  in  character,  and  that 
they  are  so  primary  and  so  elemental  in  the  evolution 
and  the  activity  of  the  human  mind  that,  ultimately, 
Truth,  Utility,  and  Goodness  must  be  referred  back 
to  them. 

Now,  the  harmonious  state  of  sentience  and 
intellect  which  the  satisfaction  of  the  aesthetic  instinct 
produces  in  man  is  pleasurable,  not  only  in  so  far 
as  the  satisfaction  of  any  instinct  or  craving  is 
pleasurable,  but  because  the  emotion  resulting 
from  form  is  determined  purely  by  the  perceptive 
emotional  or  reflective  activity  itself,  and  is  not 
determined  or  absorbed  by  any  further  aim  inherent 
in  the  object  perceived.  For  this  reason  the  objects 
of  aesthetics  have  been  called  "  contemplative  " 
(anschauend),  "  theoretic,'*  "  disinterested,"  corre- 
sponding to  the  attitude  of  play,  and  not  of  work 
or  effort. 

The  work  of  art,  therefore,  has  as  its  originative 
aim  the  production  of  aesthetic  pleasure.  Its  object 
is  not  to  establish  or  promote  truth  or  utility,  or  good- 
ness, or  holiness.  We  find  ourselves  thus  on  the 
verge  of  the  endless  discussion  concerning  the  relation 
of  aesthetics  to  ethics,  and  science  and  religion,  on 
which  so  much  has  been  written,  but  which  it  would 
be  confusing,  as  well  as  premature,  to  enter  upon  in 


6      THE  ESTHETIC  INSTINCT  AND  FACULTY 

any  detail  at  the  present  stage  of  our  inquiry.  For 
these  relationships,  both  as  regards  similarities  and 
differences,  will  become  abundantly  clear  as  we  pro- 
ceed. 

The  mistake  generally  made  in  such  discussions 
arises  out  of  an  unduly  narrow  conception  of  aesthetics 
as  dealing  exclusively,  or  at  least  primarily,  with 
"  Works  of  Art  "  ;  though  it  cannot,  and  need  not, 
be  denied  that  a  work  of  art,  being  the  direct  and, 
more  or  less,  conscious  attempt  on  the  part  of  man  to 
satisfy  his  aesthetic  instinct  and  craving,  is  the  purest 
and  in  some  aspects  the  most  illuminating  vehicle 
for  the  study  of  aesthetics.  But  the  questions  at 
once  arise,  what  this  aesthetic  faculty  really  is,  what 
is  its  origin,  and  what  is  its  position  in  the  develop- 
ment of  the  individual  human  mind  and  in  that  of  the 
whole  human  species  ?  When  we  endeavour  to  answer 
these  questions  we  soon  perceive  that  by  the  pre- 
mature intrusion  of  art  we  have  focussed  the  aim 
of  our  inquiry  far  too  narrowly  to  lead  to  full  and 
thorough  apprehension  of  the  truth.  As  a  matter 
of  fact,  this  fatal  mistake  has  been  made,  and  is 
being  made,  by  many  theorists  and  writers  on 
aesthetics,  and  is  constantly  biasing  their  sound  per- 
ception of  facts,  their  judgment  and  generalisa- 
tions. 

Esthetics  does  not  deal  exclusively,  or  even 
primarily,  with  man's  "  works  of  art,11  however 
important  this  province  of  the  study  may  in  its  due 
position  and  proportion  become,  and  however  illu- 
minating it  may  always  be  for  us  to  deal  with  definite 
objects  which  are  designedly  and  directly  meant  to 
respond  to  that  instinct  and  faculty  of  man.  Nor  is 
it  even  wise  to  dwell  too  much  at  an  early  stage  of 
inquiry  upon  the  differentiae  between  aesthetics, 
science,  pragmatics,  ethics,  and  religion.  The  safer 
method,  and  the  most  likely  to  lead  to  true  results, 


NOT   ONLY   WORKS   OF  ART  7 

will  be  to  observe  and  to  analyse  with  concentrated 
accuracy  the  aesthetic  instincts  and  faculties  in  them- 
selves, and  to  trace  their  origin  down  to  their  earliest 
beginnings  and  elements  in  human,  and  even  in 
animal,  life  and  throughout  nature. 

I  may  here  anticipate,  and  enter  into,  a  more 
specialised  department  of  the  general  subject,  namely, 
the  historical  aspect  of  the  study  of  aesthetics,  more 
especially  the  evidence  bearing  upon  the  subject  as 
derived  from  archaeology,  anthropology,  ethnography, 
and,  still  more  specially,  from  excavations  and  the 
materials  presented  by  them.  In  my  own  excava- 
tions, as  also  in  those  of  many  of  my  colleagues 
and  of  the  numerous  anthropological  and  local  exca- 
vators of  prehistoric  sites,  it  has  been  the  practice 
(excusable  in  itself,  because  so  natural)  to  show  the 
greatest  eagerness  to  find,  and  the  care  of  preserving 
and  of  tabulating  with  full  precision  the  more  highly 
decorated  objects  (which  approach  the  claim  of  being 
"  works  of  art  ").  The  excavator  is  thus  led  to  pass 
over  or  to  discard  a  large  number — generally  by  far 
the  larger  number — of  undecorated  objects  in  which 
a  symmetrical  form  or  a  higher  decoration  is  not 
manifest,  or  in  which  such  decoration  is  of  a  most 
rudimentary  and  tentative  character.  The  result  would 
be  that  the  whole  proportion,  in  the  first  place,  of  the 
finds  and,  consequently,  in  the  second  place,  of  the 
summary  picture  of  the  actual  life  which  they  illus- 
trate and  the  creative  and  artistic  activities  of  the 
primitive  peoples,  would  be  distorted  and  give  no  true 
presentment  of  that  life  and  no  justification  for 
many  of  the  generalisations  based  upon  the  data. 
I  am  convinced  that  this  is  especially  the  case  as 
regards  the  earliest  prehistoric  discoveries  of  primitive 
man. 


To  arrive  at  a  true  understanding  of  aesthetics  we 
must  go  much  deeper  down  and  further  afield,  and 
must  not  limit  ourselves  to  works  of  art,  but  must 


8      THE  ESTHETIC  INSTINCT  AND  FACULTY 

consider  those  works  of  nature  which  man  selects — 
though  he  has  not  created  them — because  they 
respond  to  his  aesthetic  instinct.  Among  these  will 
be  found,  not  only  in  the  primitive  and  subsequent 
periods  of  civilised  man's  history,  but  in  the  savage 
life  of  people  still  extant,  as  well  as  in  the  objects 
preferably  chosen  by  children,  a  large  number  of 
articles  found  in  nature  and  adapted  to  use,  not  only 
because  they  serve  a  need  but  because  they  give 
delight  by  their  form  or  colour,  to  the  touch,  to  the 
eye,  or  even  to  the  lower  senses.  Let  me  merely 
suggest  the  important  part  which  shells  have 
universally  played  in  the  life  of  the  most  primitive 
and  of  later  peoples,  from  the  simple  bowl-like  shape 
and  symmetry  of  form  of  the  Echinus  (the  body  of 
the  Doric  capital  is  called  Echinus  !)  to  variegated 
and  beautiful  shells  with  intricate  and  harmonious 
variety  of  patterns. 

When  we  are  thus  led  from  the  creation  of  the  work 
of  art  proper  to  the  selection  of  aesthetic  objects,  we 
have  advanced  a  step  towards  the  understanding  of 
the  aesthetic  instinct.  But  from  this  active  selection 
we  naturally  proceed  to  inquire  into  the  principles 
inherent  in  the  objects  of  nature  which  produce  and 
guide  such  a  selection  with  its  implied  preference, 
and  we  thus  are  face  to  face  with  the  complicated 
problem  of  the  aesthetic  principle  in  nature — as  yet 
only  the  perceptive  side  of  that  principle  which  leads 
man  to  prefer  and  to  select,  and  not  yet  the  objective 
elements  of  form  to  be  discovered  in  nature  itself 
irrespective  of  man. 

But  do  not  assume  that  I  am  now  about  to  jump 
to  a  more  complex  and  later  department  of  our  study 
in  which  the  highly  trained  and  cultured  man,  with 
fully  developed  aesthetic  faculties,  contemplates  what 
is  called  the  "  beauties  of  nature  "  such  as  have  been 
so  eloquently  described  by  many  writers,  among 


SELECTION   OF  AESTHETIC   OBJECTS         9 

whom  I  might  single  out  Ruskin.1  This  question 
belongs  to  a  far  later  phase  of  our  inquiry.1  What 
the  previous  remarks  on  the  elementary  and  primitive 
"  selection  "  of  works  of  nature  by  the  men  of  the 
Stone  Age  and  contemporary  savages  are  meant  to 
impress  is  that  the  problem  of  aesthetics  will  not 
reveal  itself  to  us  if  we  only  deal  with  the  "  work  of 
art,"  or  even  with  the  selection  of  natural  objects 
according  to  aesthetic  principles,  but  that  this  selection 
and  preference  itself  depends  upon  an  attitude  of 
mind,  a  psychological  condition  in  which  man  per- 
ceives, contemplates,  and  reacts  upon  nature. 

We  are  thus  forced  to  take  a  much  wider  purview 
of  the  problem  before  us  when  we  realise  that  we  do 
not  merely  wish  to  develop  a  Theory  of  Art  and  a 
Theory  of  Beauty  which  aesthetically  correspond  to 
a  fundamental  attitude  of  the  mind  ;  but  that  this 
aesthetic  principle  and  instinct  really  is  a  view-point 
of  nature,  life,  and  the  works,  actions,  and  thoughts 
of  man,  a  fundamental  response  to  an  instinct,  as 
well  as  to  all  perception,  cognition,  imagination, 
reasoning,  and  action.  We  shall  find  that  this  view- 
point, this  principle  of  sentience  and  consciousness, 
is  fundamental.  I  shall  even  endeavour  to  show,  as 
I  said  before,  that  it  underlies  all  other  principles 
of  Epistemology,  Pragmatics,  Ethics,  Politics,  and 
Religion.  I  must  also  repeat  again  that  this  aesthetic 
view-point  is  that  in  which  the  form  is,  if  not  the  whole 
object,  at  least  essential  to  the  thing  perceived,  the 
object  which  stimulates  the  senses,  is  felt  or  is  reflected 
upon.  The  narrow  denotation  of  the  term  "  art  "  in 
the  English  language,  moreover,  which  always  implies 
a  predominance  of  painting  and  sculpture,  is  most 

1  See  The  Work  of  John  Ruskin,  by  the  present  writer  (Harper  & 
Bros.,  1893),  especially  cap.  ii,  "  Ruskin  as  the  Founder  of  Phaeno- 
menology  of  Nature,"  p.  65  seq. 

'  See  Chap.  II,  Pt.  II. 


10    THE  ESTHETIC  INSTINCT  AND  FACULTY 

misleading  in  directing  the  mind  of  the  inquirer 
towards  a  theory  of  aesthetics.  For  such  inquiry 
music  and  the  decorative  arts  are  safer  guides,  if  we 
wish  to  penetrate  to  the  foundations  of  the  aesthetic 
principle,  to  its  earliest  origin  and  its  most  developed 
manifestations.  It  is  even  often  confusing  and 
misleading  to  make  too  free  use  of  the  term  "  Beauty." 
We  must  seek  the  principle  still  further  down  in  the 
foundations  of  the  human  mind,  and  perhaps  of 
nature  as  well,  and  resort  to  the  principles  of  pro- 
portion and  of  Harmony.  I  therefore  generally 
substitute  the  term  Harmony  for  that  of  Beauty. 
We  thus  find  ourselves  ultimately  approaching  the 
suggestive  metaphysical  principles  that  have  only 
come  down  to  us  in  a  few  fragmentary  sentences  of 
the  ancient  philosopher  Pythagoras,  such  as  "  number 
is  the  essence  of  all  things,"  and  the  phrase  "  the  music 
of  the  spheres." 

Above  all,  it  is  our  duty  to  inquire  into  the  origin 
and  the  development  of  the  aesthetic  faculty  in  man  : 
(i)  in  full-grown  normal  man,  and  in  the  constitution 
of  his  higher  senses  ;  and  we  must  trace  this  back  in 
the  fundamental  constitution  of  the  mind,  the 
physiology  and  psychology  of  the  human  being,  and 
in  the  evolution  of  the  lower  animals,  until  we  find 
that  these  aesthetic  principles  are  impressed  upon 
man  through  life  in  every  phase  of  his  sentience  and 
consciousness  ;  and  (2)  as  they  are  impressed  upon 
him  by  nature  itself  and  the  aesthetic  principles  which 
man  can  there  discover  in  the  objects  of  nature, 
including  also  the  contemplation  of  the  human  form 
as  such  an  object  ;  and  (3)  in  human  life,  including 
ethics,  pragmatics,  sociology,  and  politics  ;  and  (4) 
in  the  higher  intellectual  life  of  man,  in  science  and 
philosophy,  and  theology,  and  in  the  search  for  the 
principle  of  the  universe,  including  the  life  of  man. 

A  further  principle  of  scientific  subdivision  of  our 


HARMONY   AND   BEAUTY  11 

own  immediate  subject,  as  well  as  of  all  scientific  and 
philosophical  inquiry  in  other  spheres  of  thought, 
is  that  between  (a)  the  theoretical,  or  passive,  or 
receptive,  and  (b)  the  practical,  or  active,  or  creative, 
aspect  of  aesthetics. 

As  for  the  term  "  beauty  "  we  have  substituted 
the  terms  "  harmony,"  "  symmetry,"  and  "  pro- 
portion," so  we  must  further  reduce  harmony,  as  far 
as  possible,  to  first  principles,  in  order  that  aesthetics 
as  a  science  should  be  of  undeniable  and  universal 
validity,  not  a  matter  of  individual  and  subjective 
opinion — the  distinction  which  the  ancient  Greeks 
drew  between  eVto-TT^  and  Sofa.  It  will  then  also 
establish  the  relation  between  generalised  and  lasting 
types,  not  individual  and  ephemeral  objects,  just  as 
in  the  exact  and  natural  sciences  the  aim  is  to  recog- 
nise and  to  establish  the  "  laws  "  of  nature  and  of 
thought  and  the  formulae  which  clearly  embody  them 
— most  clearly  established  in  logic  and  mathematics 
and  laboriously  and  conscientiously  aimed  at  in  the 
natural  and  experimental  sciences,  which  latter 
approach  the  more  closely  to  their  ultimate  aim  the 
more  they  approach  to  the  definiteness,  exactness, 
and  finality  of  the  more  deductive  sciences — logic 
and  mathematics. 

Part  I  of  this  book,  the  more  general  aspect  of  the 
inquiry,  will  thus  deal  with  the  origin  of  the 
harmonistic  and  aesthetic  instinct  in  the  nervous 
system  and  in  the  developed  human  senses,  as  well  as 
its  dominance  in  the  fully  developed  human  mind. 
Part  II,  the  special  aspect  of  our  inquiry,  will  estab- 
lish the  fundamental  effectiveness  of  the  Harmonistic 
Principle  and  of  Conscious  Evolution  in  Epistemology, 
Esthetics,  Pragmatics,  Ethics,  Politics,  and  Religion. 


CHAPTER   II 

SYMMETRY      AND     ASYMMETRY  —  THE     PRINCIPLE     OF 

HARMONY 

BEAUTIFULLY-SHAPED  objects  which  we  can  touch 
and  see,  and  beautiful  sounds  which  we  can  hear,  are 
pleasant.  ^Esthetic  pleasure  in  normal  man  with 
normally  developed  senses  is,  in  the  first  instance, 
produced  by  the  perception  of  symmetry — har- 
monious proportion  of  coexistence  in  space,  har- 
monious and  rhythmical  succession  in  time.  We 
need  not  hesitate  to  lay  this  down  as  an  absolute 
"  law  "  when  studying  the  perceptive  faculties  of 
man  after  the  embryonic  or  earliest  infantile  stages 
in  all  times,  and  in  all  conditions  of  his  individual  and 
social  development,  as  this  thesis  is  always  illustrated 
in  the  most  primitive  prehistoric  conditions  of  man's 
work  in  what  might  be  called  primitive  art.  We 
shall  presently  go  deeper  down  into  the  origin  of  this 
pleasure  in  the  earlier  morphological  and  physiological 
stages  of  human  life,  animal,  and  perhaps  even 
vegetable  life,  as  we  shall  also  in  the  opposite  direction 
pursue  this  principle  to  its  higher  and  most  complex 
developments  in  the  artistic,  intellectual,  and  moral 
life  of  man.  Remember,  in  taking  our  stand  on  this, 
more  or  less,  central  platform  of  our  scientific  journey 
downward,  as  well  as  upward,  we  are  assuming  the 
fully  developed  functioning  of  man's  perceptive 
senses,  especially  of  what  we  might  call  his  "  higher  " 
senses — sight,  hearing,  and  touch.  The  following 
simple  drawings  will  make  my  meaning  clear  : — 

12 


SYMMETRY  AND  THE  "  HIGHER  "  SENSES    13 

Asymmetrical. 


FIG.  i. 

We  have  here  before  us  simple  regular  or  sym- 
metrical forms,  such  as  a  straight  line,  a  square,  a 
triangle,  a  curve,  a  wavy  line,  a  circle,  and  a  simple 
trefoil.  Opposed  to  these  regular  lines  we  have  an 
example  of  irregular  lines  joined  into  a  most  irregular 
body.  Now,  there  can  be  no  doubt  that  these 
regular  or  symmetrical  forms  are  easily  perceived  and 
produce  pleasure  to  the  senses  of  sight  or  touch  in 
their  natural  functioning,  whereas  this  is  emphatically 
not  the  case  with  regard  to  the  irregular  body. 

This  truth  can  be  readily  proved  by  experiment. 
A  rough  and  ready  experiment,  in  the  case  in  which 
a  child  or  an  infant  cannot  express  in  words  the 
sensation  which  it  feels,  is  furnished  by  the  expression 
of  its  face,  manifesting  ease  and  pleasure  in  perceiving 
a  symmetrical  form  ;  as,  per  contra,  by  contracting 
its  brow  into  a  frown,  it  will  show  its  difficulty  in 
perceiving  the  irregular  or  asymmetrical  body.  More 
accurately  and  objectively  the  measurements  of  time 
which  it  takes  for  the  apprehension  of  the  one  and  of 
the  other  will  clearly  demonstrate  the  greater  rapidity 
and  facility,  and  hence  pleasure,  in  the  perception  of 
symmetrical  over  asymmetrical  bodies.  Still  more 
11  objective  "  experiments  can  be  made  by  the  help 
of  instruments  indicating  the  curves  in  a  chart  ;  and, 
finally,  by  the  still  more  subtle  Symmetrical 
measurement  of  blood-pressure. 

The  same  applies  to  the  sense  of 
hearing  ;  and  the  following  figures 
show  by  means  of  dots,  lines,  and 
curves  representing  long  and  short      or  Asymmetrical 
sounds  and  their   intervals,  regu-     ..  • /"  s  ^  /  \  ^ 
larity  and  symmetry,  as  distinct  FIG.  2. 


14  SYMMETRY   AND   ASYMMETRY 

from  irregular  asymmetrical  succession,  while  waves 
and  parallel  waves  indicate  the  graphic  charts  of  tones 
and  harmony  of  tones,  in  contradistinction  to  the 
irregular  and  intersecting  lines  and  curves  of  confused 
sounds,  which  we  call  noises.  Here  again  experi- 
ments readily  demonstrate  that  tones  and  harmonies 
are  more  easily  perceived  and  are  more  pleasurable 
to  the  ear  than  confused  sounds  or  noises. 

An  important  result,  corresponding  in  the  senses  to 
this  aesthetic  quality  of  harmonious  coexistence  and 
succession,  is  no  doubt  due  to  the  fact  that  the  higher 
organs  of  sensation — the  eyes,  the  ears,  and  the  hands 
— are  dualistic,  that  they  are  in  pairs.  They  are  or 
ought  normally  to  be  symmetrical  themselves. 
Complete  and  individual  perception  depends  upon 
the  co-ordinate  working  of  the  two  organs  together— 
what,  with  regard  to  the  eye,  is  called  "  accom- 
modation." l 

Numerous  experiments  can  be  made;  and  have 
been  made,  to  demonstrate  this  normal  functioning 
of  the  higher  senses.  But  the  fact  that  such  complete 
"  accommodation  "  is  required  for  the  full  sense- 
perception  is  amply  proved  with  regard  to  the  eye 
by  the  effect  which  the  pathological  condition  called 
"  astigmatism  "  has  upon  vision,  and  the  resultant 
discomfort,  ultimately  leading  to  a  disturbance  of 
the  whole  organism,  to  pain,  and  even  disease. 

With  regard  to  the  sense  of  hearing,  it  can  equally 
be  demonstrated  that  causes  which  disturb  the 
harmonious  centralised  functioning  and  accommoda- 

1  Of  course,  outer  objects  or  stimuli  may  in  their  relation  exclusively 
or  more  strongly  affect  one  of  the  two  organs  (one  eye,  one  ear,  or  one 
organ  of  touch)  ;  but,  as  has  been  demonstrated  (especially  by  Loeb, 
in  dealing  with  heliotropism)  the  result  of  unilateral  stimuli  produces 
a  definite  movement  which  corresponds  to  a  regular  mathematical  or 
symmetrical  formula.  The  normal  tendency  in  the  human  being, 
however,  is  as  far  as  possible,  to  rectify  and  complete  all  perception 
of  dualistic  senses  by  centralised  perception,  in  which  both  organs  act 
equally  and  harmoniously. 


SYMMETRICAL   "TYPE"  15 

tion  of  the  two  ears  interferes  with  complete  percep- 
tion, its  facility  and  pleasurableness.1 

In  the  further  processes  of  mental  activity  arising 
out  of  simple  perception,  it  is  important  for  our 
purpose  to  know  the  bearing  of  symmetry,  contrasted 
with  asymmetry,  upon  the  memory,'  for  it  will  readily 
be  seen  that  the  symmetrical  body  or  stimulus  can 
be  easily  retained  and  on  future  occasions  recognised 
by  its  identity  or  similarity  with  the  first  impression, 
whereas  this  is  not  the  case  with  a  highly  individual 
irregular  or  asymmetrical  body.  And  we  shall  see 
at  a  later  stage  of  our  inquiry  that  the  irregular  and 
essentially  individual  stimulus  or  body  will  be  recalled 
or  described  by  its  deviation  from  the  symmetrical 
or  "  typical  "  body  most  clearly  related  to  it. 

We  shall  also  find  that  all  apprehension  of  individual 
things  and  beings  as  such,  what  gives  them  their 
"  individuality  "  or  "  originality,"  is  received  and 
imparted  by  fixing  or  emphasising  the  deviation 
from  the  regular,  symmetrical,  or  typical  forms  to 
which  they  belong,  as  in  the  simplest  geometrical  or 
arithmetical  formulse  we  should  describe  a  singular 
body  or  relationship  by  its  deviation  from  the  most 
typical  form  or  relation.  So,  for  instance,  we  should 
describe  an  irregular  line  or  curve,  or  body,  by  its 
deviation  from  the  straight  line  or  circular  curve, 
or  triangle,  square,  or  any  other  regular  known  shape  ; 
and,  in  dividing  seventeen,  the  schoolboy  would 
naturally  recall  that  it  is  three  times  five  plus  two,  or 
three  times  six  minus  one. 

One  fact  stands  out  clearly,  namely,  that  in  our 

1  I  know  of  the  case  of  a  highly  trained  lover  of  music  who,  late  in 
life,  was  forced  to  give  up  hearing  all  concerted  music,  from  which  he 
had  formerly  derived  much  pleasure,  because  a  disturbance  in  one  of 
his  ears  led  to  the  perception  of  accord  as  discord. 

1  This  question  will  be  more  specially  considered  in  Part  II,  in  dealing 
with  that  harmonistic  principle  in  its  relation  to  human  knowledge  or 
epistemology. 


16  SYMMETRY    AND   ASYMMETRY 

simple  sense-perception  regularity,  symmetry,  and 
harmony  are  most  readily  perceived  and  produce 
aesthetic  pleasure. 

We  have  hitherto  only  dealt  with  what  we  have 
called,  in  an  inaccurate  phrase,  the  "  higher  senses," 
and  have  noted  that  these  are  dualistic  in  the  organs 
of  perception.  But  it  may  fairly  be  questioned 
whether  the  "  lower  "  senses  (smell  and  taste)  are 
not  also  provided  with  dualistic  organs.  We  must 
remember  that  we  have  two  nostrils  ;  that  the 
tongue  has  two  sides  ;  and  that  taste  depends  upon 
the  co-ordination  and  co-operation  of  the  palate,  lips, 
and  the  other  sensitive  mucous  membranes  of  the 
mouth,  as  well  as  their  co-operation  with  the  olfactory 
organs  and  nerves.  It  is  also  of  great  importance 
at  this  early  stage  to  remember  that  the  whole  of 
the  human  body  is  symmetrical  in  its  division  into 
two  halves,  and  that  the  outer  direction  of  stimuli  on 
the  right  and  left,  front  and  back,  up  and  down,  are 
all  based  upon  geometrical  and  symmetrical  principles. 

But  a  very  wide  field  of  further  inquiry  is  open  to 
the  experimental  physiologist  and  psychologist  in 
determining  whether  our  sensations  of  smell  and 
touch,  though  differing  in  degree,  are  not  in  kind  of 
the  same  aesthetic  nature  as  those  of  our  "  higher  " 
senses.  Experiments  can  even  now  clearly  show  the 
different  reactions  in  the  sense  of  smell  to  the  perfume 
of  a  rose  or  the  stench  of  a  putrifying  body,  as  well 
as  the  sweet  taste  of  one  article  of  food,  or  the  acid 
or  bitter  taste  of  another.  It  may  be  possible  to 
produce  charts  reflecting  to  the  eye  symmetry  in  the 
one  case  and  asymmetry  in  the  other.  Finally,  I 
would  suggest  that  the  normal  physiological  functions 
of  the  body  in  the  circulation  of  the  blood  and  in 
digestion,  etc.,  are  rhythmical,  periodic,  and  sym- 
metrical, and  that  any  interruption  or  disturbance 
of  normality  and  health  produces  pain,  whereas 


ASYMMETRY   AND  INFINITY  17 

symmetry  indicates  the  normal  state  and,  when  per- 
ceived, produces  pleasure.  In  any  case,  the  fact 
remains  that  symmetry  underlies  aesthetic  pleasure. 
But,  without  wishing  to  confuse  the  reader  at  this 
elementary  stage  of  our  inquiry  by  anticipating 
complexities,  the  solution  of  which  belongs  to  a  much 
later,  if  not  the  last,  stage  of  our  researches  (meta- 
physics and  religion),  I  must  (if  only  as  a  warning 
against  extreme  and  hasty  generalisation)  show  that 
what  is  clearly  asymmetrical  or  discordant  from  one 
point  of  view  may,  from  a  later  or  higher  point  of 
view  of  relativity,  become  symmetrical  and  har- 
monious. To  put  this  question — or  rather  problem — 
into  an  epigrammatic  form  :  When  we  proceed  to 
the  infinitely  great  or  to  the  infinitely  small,  what 
was  asymmetrical  and  discordant  may  become  sym- 
metrical and  harmonious ;  and  I  cannot  refrain  from 
adding  to  this,  as  a  mere  suggestion  for  thoughtful 
reflexion,  the  fact  that  in  the  whole  of  human  life 
and  thought  this  result  provides  a  hopeful  element 
in  the  outlook  upon  life  in  its  relation  to  the  universe, 
and  forms  the  basis  for  optimism  and  hope  instead 
of  pessimism  and  despair.  To  illustrate  this  by 
Fig.  i  here,  in  which,  in  the  first  instance,  the 
symmetrical  form  stands  in  direct  contrast  to  the 
asymmetrical  form,  we  shall  find  that,  if  we  approach 
the  infinitely  small  by  taking  even  a  comparatively 
large  subdivision  of  this  symbol  of  asymmetry,  and 
still  more  when  we  apply  the  microscope,  each 
section  presents  in  itself  a  completeness  of  symmetry. 
It  is  instructive  to  note  that  the  most  repulsive 
pathological  specimens  under  the  microscope — the 
stronger  the  power  the  more  so — assume  often  the 
most  artistic  decorative  and  pleasing  forms,  whereas 
the  greater  the  distance  from  which  we  see  the 
figure  irregularities  recede.  The  same  applies  to 
elements  of  sound  and  succession.  If,  on  the  other 
3 


18  SYMMETRY   AND   ASYMMETRY 

hand,  we  take  this  complex  tangle  of  lines  as  a  unit 
and  reduce  it  to  the  smallest  dimensions  in  which  it 
becomes  but  a  round  spot,  it  will  correspond  to  other 
spots  and  will  form  a  unit  for  further  symmetrical 
combinations.  Contemplate  the  picture  of  a  starry 
night,  and  remember  what  the  form  of  a  planet  may 
be  when  seen  in  proximity. 

Thus,  if  we  take  our  specimen  of  an  asymmetrical 
body  (Fig.  i)  we  find  that  as  we  enlarge  it,  until 
finally  we  examine  its  portions  under  a  microscope, 
each  portion  or  segment  of  this  asymmetrical  figure 
becomes  symmetrical  or  regular.  Those  which  are 
parts  of  a  straight  line  running  in  any  haphazard 
direction  or  intersecting  one  another  become,  when 
thus  reduced  in  dimensions,  straight  lines  and  show 

definite  regular  angles  ( A          )  in  their 

change  of  direction.  Those  which  are  curved  running  in 
a  haphazard  direction  become  definite  and  harmonious 

segments  of  a  circle  or  an  arc  (   ^  ,  /~  ,    /~\    )  m 

Each  section  thus  presents  complete  symmetry  and 
harmony. 

On  the  other  hand,  if,  keeping  the  asymmetrical 
figure  in  sight,  you  recede  backwards  at  varying 
distances,  you  will  again  find  that  the  asymmetry 
and  irregularity  diminish  as  you  recede.  If  a 
number  of  photographs  are  taken,  you  will  note  how, 
with  the  increase  in  regularity  and  symmetry  of  the 
figure  as  a  whole,  portions  of  the  detail  in  line  drop 
out,  while  others  are  relatively  accentuated  until 
you  reduce  the  complex  body  to  comparative  sim- 
plicity. The  interior  too  changes  its  colour,  gradually 
turning  from  lighter  grey  to  a  darker  shade,  until, 
finally,  at  the  furthest  distance,  the  body  is  reduced 
to  a  simple  dot  or  circle  which,  as  a  regular  unit,  might 
form  any  part  of  a  complex  symmetrical  series. 


CONVERSION  INTO   SYMMETRY  19 

I  have  made  numerous  experiments  to  verify  the 
continuous  predominance  of  symmetry  as  an  asym- 
metrical body  is  viewed  at  gradually  increasing 
distances.  It  is  a  noteworthy  fact  that  with  "  ab- 
normal " — especially  "  astigmatic  " — vision  some  indi- 
vidual lines  asserted  undue  prominence  and  direction. 
But  with  normal  vision  the  growth  of  symmetry  was 
undoubted  and  manifest.  The  series  of  figures 
(Plate  I,  Fig.  3)  were  produced  photographically  at 
the  laboratory  of  the  Cambridge  &  Paul  Scientific 
Instrument  Company,  and  show  the  changes  in  the 
appearance  of  the  asymmetrical  body  at  the  dis- 
tances of  9,  1 8,  36,  and  72  feet. 

Though  this  aspect  of  the  problem  concerns  a  later 
stage  of  our  inquiry,  we  may  anticipate  the  suggestion 
that  we  have  here  before  us,  in  broad  outline,  the 
chief  elements  of  the  mental  process,  from  a  simplest 
perception,  through  all  forms  of  conception  and 
generalisation,  to  ratiocination.  In  any  case,  the 
microscopic  process  corresponds  to  the  analytic 
faculty  of  mind,  as  the  megascopic  corresponds  to 
the  synthetic  faculty.  It  is,  however,  important  to 
remember  that  even  the  analytic  process  is  not  purely 
passive,  negative,  and  dissolvent,  but  calls  into  play 
some  positive  or  imaginative  activity,  and  that  both 
are  determined  by  the  harmonistic  principle  in  the 
perception  of  regularity  and  symmetry. 

Now,  to  leave  this  parenthetical  episode  on  asym- 
metry and  to  search  for  the  reason  for  this  result  of 
aesthetic  pleasure  upon  human  perception  arising  out 
of  symmetry,  we  find,  in  the  first  instance  (a),  that  this 
pleasure,  especially  as  regards  our  higher  senses,  is 
caused  by  the  need  of  such  symmetry  owing  to  the 
dualism  of  these  higher  senses,  in  that  we  have  two  eyes, 
two  ears,  and  two  arms  and  legs.  Without  venturing 
deeply  into  the  problems  of  physiological  optics,  or 
the  physiology  of  the  ear,  what  is  called  accommoda- 


20  SYMMETRY   AND  ASYMMETRY 

tion  of  the  eyes  in  ocular  perception  is  an  essential 
factor  in  that  perception,  the  importance  of  which 
becomes  especially  manifest  when  there  is  a  patho- 
logical   inefficiency    in    the    act    of   accommodation. 
Thus,  to  say  the  least,  a  symmetrical  form  is  more 
easily  perceived  than  an  asymmetrical  one  ;  the  latter 
may  become  relatively  painful  as  regards  the  per- 
ceptive effort,   while  the  former  will  only  become 
relatively  pleasurable.     It  takes  the  infant  some  time 
to  accommodate  its  perceptive  functions  in  space  and 
time  to  the  realities  of  outer  life,  and  to  acquire  the 
power  of  localising  outer  objects  and  their  relation 
to  itself  and  its  needs  by  means  of  the  proper  function- 
ing of  both  its  eyes,  both  its  ears,  and  both  its  hands.1 
If  we  rise  from  these  simpler  elements  of  sense-per- 
ception to  the  higher  forms  of  conscious  perception, 
to  the  forming  of  concepts,  the  rudimentary  but  clear 
and  complete  sense-perception  through    the  accom- 
modation of  the  dualistic  organs  of  sense  leads  further 
to  a  clearer  and  higher  phase  of  apprehension  and 
cognition  which  gradually,  and  even  at  an  early  stage, 
confirms  and  makes  conscious  objective  perception  and 
the  establishment  of  consciousness  in  some  form  or 
other,  fixing  the  relation  which  the  outer  object  bears 
to  self  in  the  satisfaction  of  wants  and  desires  or  in 
the  satisfaction  arising  out  of  successful  activity  or 
functioning  of  the  organs  themselves.     At  all  events, 
the   easier   and   more   complete   this   form   of  sense 
activity  and  sense-perception  is,   the  more  does   it 
avoid  pain  and  positively  lead  to  satisfaction  and 
pleasure,  conditioned    by  what  may  be    called    the 
harmony  of  the  outer  object  perceived,     (b)  But  a 
second  and  more  advanced  condition  arises  out  of 
this  objective  harmony,  namely,  in  the  fact  that  the 

1  We  shall  have  occasion  as  we  proceed  to  consider  the  question  of 
the  symmetry  of  other  organs  and  of  the  human  body  in  relation  to  the 
organic  and  inorganic  world. 


INFLUENCE   OF   DUALISTIC  ORGANS       21 

symmetrical  or  harmonious  presents  the  senses  with 
a  generalised  or  typical  form,  while  the  asymmetrical 
and  discordant  remain  individual.  The  result  is  that, 
with  repetition  and  repercussion,  the  harmonious  or 
generalised  forms  become  still  more  easy  and  pleasant 
of  apprehension,  while  the  others  do  not.  Still 
further  (c),  it  thus  forms  the  groundwork  for  memory 
and  association  which,  as  is  universally  admitted, 
form  the  basis  for  the  whole  development  of  the 
human  intellect.  I  also  need  not  insist  upon  the  fact 
that  this  symmetrical  form,  so  easily  and  fully  appre- 
hended, and  establishing  a  general  type  in  itself,  in 
contradistinction  to  the  distinctly  individual  nature 
of  the  asymmetrical  body,  can,  and  as  a  matter  of  fact 
will,  and  must,  as  regards  its  harmonious  nature  be 
repeated  in  experience  and  can  be  readily  remembered 
and  recognised  with  regard  to  its  identity  or  similarity 
— which  is  not  the  case  with  asymmetrical  bodies. 
The  same,  of  course,  applies  the  nearer  we  approach 
towards  the  work  of  art  in  which  a  definite  tune  or 
shape  can  be  remembered  and  accurately  reproduced  ; 
whereas  the  same  cannot  apply  to  an  accidental  tangle 
of  form  or  noise. 

I  must  here  point  to  a  very  significant  and  im- 
portant fact,  namely,  that  what  we  thus  call  the 
"  higher  "  senses  (I  maintain  because  of  this  primarily 
esthetic  quality  of  theirs)  have  evolved  generalised 
attributes  fixed  by  human  language,  while  the 
"  lower  "  and  purely  elementary  or  procreative  senses 
and  instincts  have  not.  This  of  itself  leads  us  to  all 
forms  of  spiritual  generalisation,  even  to  the  highest 
abstractions  of  the  human  mind.  Thus  all  the  ele- 
ments of  Euclidian  geometry,  appealing  to  eyesight 
as  well  as  touch,  in  their  simplest  sensual  form  are 
established  by  means  of  general  terms,  which  can  be 
applied  to  an  infinite  number  of  individual  objects. 
The  same  applies  to  colours  growing  in  variety  and 


22  SYMMETRY   AND   ASYMMETRY 

nomenclature,  as  man  progresses  in  civilisation  and 
productiveness,  including  the  minutest  shadings  of 
definite  colours.  The  same  also  applies  to  musical 
rhythms,  to  the  variety  of  notes,  harmonies,  notation 
of  tempi,  and  of  the  other  highly  differentiated  and 
exact  notations  of  music  :  whereas,  when  we  come 
to  the  sensation  of  taste,  with  the  exception  of  sweet, 
sour,  and  bitter  (and  we  cannot  include  hot  and  cold, 
or  hard  and  soft,  as  these  are  probably  borrowed 
from  the  sense  of  touch),  and  to  smell  (in  which 
"  sweet  "  is  probably  only  borrowed  from  the  palate), 
the  attributes  are  not  generalised,  but  can  only  be 
conveyed  by  the  distinct  taste  or  smell  of  the  indi- 
vidual object. 

Whether  the  "  higher  "  and  "  lower  "  depend  upon 
the  difference  between  the  dualistic  senses  (eyes,  ears, 
arms,  etc.),  in  contradistinction  to  the  single  organs 
of  perception,  I  will  not  endeavour  to  determine  now. 
But,  leaving  these  dualistic  senses,  we  must  turn  to 
these  single  organs  of  perception — in  which  again 
the  aesthetic  principle  of  pleasure  in  the  business  of 
perception  constitutes  an  elementary  principle.  But 
I  must  at  once  point  out  that  the  dual  nature  bearing 
so  immediately  upon  touch,1  in  the  arms  and  hands, 
is  not  always  necessary  to  our  perception  of  touch 
by  other  means  ;  for  we  may — and,  as  a  matter  of 
fact,  do — often  perceive  with  one  hand  only  (though 
this  again  is  made  up  of  five  fingers). 

Now,  with  regard  to  the  problem  immediately 
before  us,  it  is  most  important  for  us  to  realise  that 
the  single  organs  of  sense  are  inseparably  attached  to 
the  human  body  (as  well,  of  course,  as  the  dual 
organs).  They  are  thus,  as  I  venture  to  call  them, 

1  In  this  connection  I  must  also  remind  the  reader  that  touch  applies 
to  the  whole  peripheral  surface  of  the  human  body  or  skin  and  also  to 
what  might  be  called  the  muscular  sense,  especially  as  regards  the 
perception  of  hot  and  cold,  hard  and  soft,  front  and  back,  right  and 
left,  etc. 


SOMATOCENTRIC  ORGANS  23 

somatocentric,  or,  as  the  mathematicians  would  call  it, 
centrobaric.     This  in  simple  language  means  that  they 
are  attached  to  the  human  body  as  a  whole,  and  lose 
their  nature  as  organs  of  sense  when  severed  from  the 
body.     Their  activity  as  organs  of  nerve  activity  is 
thus  determined  by  the  fact  that  they  are  tied  down 
to  their  central  position,   and    must    radiate    their 
activity   from   that   centre.     I    must   here   at   once 
anticipate  and  suggest  the  importance  of  this  fact 
in  the  creation  of  the  consciousness  of  the  ego,  or  of 
self-consciousness,    in   the   evolution   of  the   human 
mind.     Every  sensory  act  received  or  conveyed  by 
these  somatocentric  organs  is  therefore  determined  by 
this  central  bodily  point,  whether  it  be  centrifugal  or 
centripetal.     It  is  thus  a  form  of  motion.     But,  in  so 
far  as  it  becomes  perceptive  and  responsive,  the  ease 
or  facility,  the  economy  of  effort,  and  (if  we  may  call 
it  so)  the  perfection  of  the  motion,  determines  its 
pleasurableness    or    its    painfulness — which,    again, 
follows  the  law  of  least  resistance.     Now,  this  ease 
or  economy  of  effort,  or  even  of  force,  in  such  a 
somatocentric  motion,  is  to  be  found  in  two  broad 
subdivisions  :    the  one  the  straight  and  continuous 
line  ;    the  other  the   curve   and   circle,   which  will 
naturally,  from  the  centre  outward  and  back  to  the 
fixed  starting-point,  take  an  elliptical  form.     These 
again  fall  under  the  same  heading  of  symmetry  and 
harmony  as  being  the  most  highly  generalised  form 
applicable  to  all  objects  facilitating  apprehension  and 
producing  memory  and  association,  to  which  I  have 
just  referred  above,  as  a  result  of  the  activity  of  the 
dualistic  organs  of  sense.     The  straight  line  and  its 
combinations   in   all  geometric  forms  is  the  easiest 
and  most  economical  form  of  motion.     Whether  this 
continuous  straight  line  is  made  up  of  innumerable 
interrupted  dots  and  spots  or  not  does  not  affect  our 
argument    and    its    conclusion,    because    the    same 


24  SYMMETRY   AND   ASYMMETRY 

principle  in  respect  of  time  will  apply  to  arithmetical 
regularity  and  proportion,  and  again  brings  us  face 
to  face  with  the  epigrammatic  principle  of  Pythagoras, 
that  "  number  is  the  essence  of  all  things."  I  may 
here  also  throw  out  the  metaphysical  suggestion, 
which  as  early  as  1878  1  I  ventured  to  make,  that  pure 
realism  or  pure  idealism — that  is  monism — can  only 
be  established  when  space  is  converted  into  time,  or 
time  into  space.  Besides  the  straight  line,  with  its 
continuation  and  combination  into  angles,  triangles, 
squares,  etc.,  there  is  the  curve  which  is  the  necessary 
consequence  of  any  motion  emanating  from  a  fixed 
centre  and  especially  the  natural  motion  of  the  hand 
with  the  arm  fixed  to  the  shoulder  of  the  human 
body.  Therefore,  as  all  somatocentric  motion  and 
function  is  summarised  under  these  two  main  divisions 
of  the  straight  line  and  the  curve,  while  conforming, 
if  not  producing,  the  consciousness  of  the  ego  of  the 
human  embryo  or  the  infant,  these  geometric  forms, 
which  in  common  parlance  we  should  call  regular  or 
symmetrical,  being  the  most  economical  form  of 
effort,  the  easiest,  and  therefore  the  most  pleasurable, 
also  produce  the  aesthetic  principle  which  we  have 
hitherto  found  always  interwoven  with  the  acts  of 
sense-perception. 

1  The  Balance  of  Emotion  and  Intellect,  p.  40  seq.  (Kegan,  Paul  & 
Co.,  1878). 


CHAPTER   III 

CONSCIOUSNESS   AND    SELF-CONSCIOUSNESS 

HERE  we  must  pause  for  one  moment  and  consider 
more  closely  the  concept  Consciousness  in  connection 
with  the  influence  of  the  somatocentric  and  centro- 
baric  movements  and  functions.  Biologists,  as  well 
as  psycho-physicists,  cannot  be  too  frequently 
reminded  of  the  fact  that  Consciousness  implies  a 
complexity  presenting  an  infinite  number  of  grada- 
tions. These  range  from  the  simplest  form  of  reflex 
actions  to  the  highest  form  of  self-consciousness  and 
abstract  and  generalised  reasoning.  As  far  as  our 
present  knowledge  goes,  the  simplest  and  earliest 
manifestation  of  reflex  action  is  connected  with 
galvanic  stimulation  in  which  the  very  slightest  degree 
of  sentience  can  be  assumed  or  no  sentience  at  all. 
We  shall  deal  with  these  earlier  phases  when  we  are 
considering  the  evolution  of  the  nervous  system  and 
of  sentience  in  the  simplest  organisms  and  phases  of 
animal  life.  For  the  present  we  must  confine  our- 
selves to  the  human  being  from  birth  upwards. 
Here,  too,  there  are  a  large  number  of  phases  through 
which  sentience  passes  until  it  reaches  consciousness, 
and  all  the  philosophic  systems  which  begin  with 
self-consciousness  are,  in  the  light  of  modern  research, 
greatly  at  fault.  For  we  must  note  that  self- 
consciousness — the  consciousness  of  the  ego — marks 
a  comparatively  very  late  stage.  But  even  the 
scientific  modern  physiologist  or  psychologist  must 
take  great  care  to  keep  clearly  separate  in  his  mind 

35 


26    CONSCIOUSNESS,   SELF-CONSCIOUSNESS 

the  several  distinguishable  phases,  or  his  conclusions 
are  apt  to  be  confused  and  faulty.     The  somatocentric 
and   centrobaric  functions  which   point  to  somato- 
tropic  quality  of  the  nervous  system  in  man  go  far 
to  make  clear  to  us  some  elements  and  phases  in  the 
mental  evolution  which  leads  finally  to  developed 
self-consciousness.     This  "  tropism  "  manifests  itself 
in  the  earliest  phases,  and,  to  take  a  rough  and  ready 
instance,  in  the  very  first  and  significant  moment  in 
the  birth  of  the  infant — namely,  in  the  first  sound 
or  cry  emitted  by  the  normal  infant  leading  to  normal 
respiration.     This  sound  or  cry,  even  though  it  be 
stimulated  by  outer  chemical  elements,  is  a  spon- 
taneous  activity   of  the   vocal   chords.     From   this 
moment  numerous  somatocentric  activities  proceed 
which — unconsciously  to  the  infant  or  organism  itself — 
establish  its  relationship  to  its  own  functioning  body 
and   to  the  outer  world.     But  with  the  growth  of 
sentience  and  nervous  activity  all  the  physiological 
activities  of  the  child  are  somatocentric  and  manifest 
geometrical  or  rhythmical  regularity,  establishing  the 
harmoniotropic  tendency  and  principle  of  activity.    It 
takes  a  considerable  time  and  numerous  evolutionary 
phases  have  to  be  undergone  before  the  child  adapts 
itself  to  the  outer  world,  and  more  or  less  realises  the 
existence  of  things  without.     But  it  is  all-important 
to    remember    that    these    things    without    are   ex- 
clusively related   to    the   bodily   centre    itself,    and 
are  not  distinguishable  in  the  consciousness  of  the 
child — if  we  may  use  the  term  consciousness  at  all — 
from  that  centre.     For  a  long  time  subject  and  object 
are  mixed  up  together,  and  while  the  outer  objects 
are  all  limited  in  their  subjective  existence  to  the 
relation    to    the    child's    own    body,    with   growing 
"  unconscious  "  perception,  its  own  body  is  not  yet 
distinguished  from  the  outer  objects.     Thus  for  a 
long  time  the  child  will  speak  of  itself — namely,  its 


LATENESS  OF  CONSCIOUSNESS  OF  SELF    27 

bodily  existence  as  baby,  or  something  on  a  par  with 
the  outer  objects  which  have  come  within  its  range  of 
perception.  Then  gradually  the  range  of  outer 
objects  becomes  more  extended  in  space  and  enlarged 
in  number.  But  even  then  all  these  perceptions  are 
egocentric  and  their  existence  is  limited  by  the  relation- 
ship to  self.  The  further  differentiation  of  the  outer 
world  takes  place  in  that  things  without  are,  through 
memory  and  association, "  integrated  "  on  the  grounds 
of  symmetry  or  likeness,  and  then  the  more  remote, 
or  newer,  or  more  unlike,  objects  are  classified  with 
the  nearer,  more  familiar,  and  more  identical  objects 
of  its  past  perceptions.  Thus  every  man  and  woman 
is  at  first  classed  as  dadda  or  mamma,  until  they  are 
at  last  endowed  with  independent  individuality  of 
their  own.  It  is  at  a  comparatively  late  stage  that 
the  consciousness  of  self,  as  distinguished  from  the 
outer  world,  is  developed  and  established,  and  that 
the  whole  world  of  relationships  in  perception,  feeling, 
and  thought  unites  to  make  up  the  mental  individuality 
and  the  higher  faculties  of  feeling  and  reason  by 
means  of  the  function  of  memory  and  association 
with  which  we  shall  deal  in  the  Second  Part. 

It  is,  of  course,  at  a  still  later  stage  that  the  moral 
and  social  relationships  of  self  to  human  beings,  to 
society  and  to  the  whole  universe  are  developed  in 
man. 

In  conclusion  we  must  note  that  it  is  quite  con- 
ceivable that,  through  the  process  of  integration, 
repetition,  and  association  of  stimuli,  the  unity  of 
the  body  may  become  a  recognised  centre,  and  that 
the  several  organs  are  attached  to,  and  form  part  of, 
that  body  and  lead  to  consciousness.  The  step  to 
self-consciousness  is  more  difficult  to  account  for  and 
marks  a  comparatively  late  stage  in  the  evolution  of 
the  human  mind.  But,  no  doubt,  from  the  recogni- 
tion of  the  parts  and  organs  of  his  own  body,  the 


28    CONSCIOUSNESS,   SELF-CONSCIOUSNESS 

human  being  proceeds  to  the  recognition  of  similar 
parts  and  organs  in  those  habitually  about  the  infant ; 
this  is  strengthened  when  once,  through  the  senses 
(especially  through  the  eye  in  reflecting  bodies  such 
as  water  or  shining  substances  acting  as  mirrors),  the 
infant  sees  itself.  Finally,  through  the  perception 
and  full  recognition  of  its  own  desires  and  activities, 
their  satisfaction  and  their  success,  or  their  unfulfil- 
ment  or  failure,  coupled  with  that  of  the  full  per- 
sonality of  other  human  beings,  friends  and  foes, 
evoking  hopeful  attraction  or  fear,  love  or  hate — all 
similar,  if  not  identical  with,  its  own  body  and  bodily 
activities — the  fuller  consciousness  of  self  and  self- 
consciousness  are  developed  and  completely  estab- 
lished ;  until  language  and  thought  finally  lead  to 
the  most  complete  realisation  of  self  and  its  relation 
to  other  individuals  and  the  whole  outer  and  inner 
world. 

What,  however,  is  here  of  chief  importance  to  our 
inquiry  is  the  realisation  of  the  fact  that,  fundamen- 
tally and  ultimately,  the  somatocentric  and  centro- 
baric  movements  and  functions,  with  all  the  resultant 
influences,  are  based  upon  the  harmonistic  principle. 

Now,  the  principle  of  symmetry  in  static  bodies 
and  in  motion,  implying  also  regularity  in  time — the 
principle  of  harmony — is  thus  the  principle  of  all 
sense-perception  in  its  most  elementary  form,  and 
corresponds,  because  of  this  economy  in  effort  and 
in  force,  to  the  rudimentary  feeling  of  ease,  and 
consequently  of  pleasure,  in  the  function  of  each 
sense  organ. 

It  may  be  said  that  the  principles  here  insisted 
upon  really  come  under  the  heading  of  utilitarianism, 
and  not  of  aestheticism.  I  readily  admit  that,  in 
these  early  phases  of  the  working  of  the  human 
organism  and  mind,  these  two  divisions  of  what 
might  be  called  utility  and  harmony  have  not  yet 


HARMONY   AND  UTILITY  29 

bifurcated  as  they  will  do  in  the  later  and  more 
advanced  stages  of  human  development.  Self- 
preservation  implies  the  concept  self,  which  we  have 
seen  is  a  late  development  in  the  history  of  the 
organism.  At  most  we  might  assume  consciousness 
in  the  functioning  organs  and  in  the  function  itself ; 
but  this  would  be  of  a  harmonistic  or  aesthetic  nature 
and  not  simply  self-preservation  of  the  individual 
as  such  or  "  utility."  I  maintain  that  the  concept 
utility  is  not  simple  and  elementary,  but  is  complex, 
and  is  therefore  grossly  misleading  when  applied  to 
these  elementary  phases  of  physiology  and  psychology. 
For  the  connotation  of  utility  presupposes  a  fixed, 
fully  developed,  and  consciously  existing  number  of 
units,  who  either  of  themselves  or  by  some  directing 
agent  without,  a  deus  ex  machina,  immediately 
minister  to  the  self-preservation  and  advancement  of 
these  several  units.  It  certainly  implies  a  fixed  and 
self-conscious  unit.  Our  principle  of  harmony,  as 
we  have  seen,  thus  leads  through  the  actual  working 
of  it  on  the  lines  of  least  resistance  and  of  regularity 
in  the  static  and  the  moving  nature  of  its  functions, 
to  the  gradual  production,  or  at  least  the  confirmation, 
of  such  an  ego,  and  therefore  belongs  to  an  earlier 
phase.  Moreover,  the  aesthetic  response  in  these 
rudimentary  forms,  as  applied  to  the  human  senses, 
is  immediately  and  wholly  the  outcome  of  this 
harmonious  nature  of  the  function  itself,  whereas  the 
idea  of  utility  necessarily  implies  a  further  object 
or  end  beyond  the  function  itself,  through  which  it 
becomes  useful.  I  shall  have  occasion  to  show  (when 
we  deal  more  especially  with  the  works  of  man  relating 
to  art)  that  objects  in  nature  and  those  produced  by 
means  which  are  in  their  entirety  destined  to  be 
useful,  are  principally  determined  in  their  form  by 
their  purely  aesthetic  quality. 


CHAPTER   IV 

THE   HARMONISTIC   PRINCIPLE    IN    EARLIEST    FORMS    OF 
ORGANIC   AND    SENTIENT   LIFE 

WE  shall,  in  the  course  of  our  inquiry,  trace  still 
further  the  development  of  the  aesthetic  instinct, 
and  show  how  it  is  primary  and  dominant  in  the 
functioning  and  growth  of  the  mind  from  birth 
upwards.  But,  before  we  proceed  in  establishing 
this  dominance  in  human  life  we  must  find,  as  far  as 
possible,  the  foundations  and  the  origin  of  the  aesthetic 
instinct  in  those  elementary  forms  of  life  and  sentience 
preceding  the  complex  organisation  of  the  human 
mind  with  man's  fully  developed  nervous  system. 

Of  course  it  is  more  difficult  to  ascertain  the  sense- 
perception  in  animals,  as  they  have  no  direct  means 
of  communicating  their  own  perceptions  to  us  as 
perceptions.  It  is  difficult,  if  not  impossible,  for  us 
to  discover  their  feelings  or  consciousness  concerning 
the  nature  and  quality  of  their  perceptions.  We  can 
only  ascertain  what  is  immediately  painful  or  pleasant 
to  them  by  direct  stimulation.  But  there  is  no  doubt, 
for  instance,  that  gentle  and  rhythmical  stroking  is 
pleasant,  whereas  violent  and  spasmodic  jerking  or 
patting  is  not,  and  that  sudden  and  unwonted  ex- 
periences startle  or  frighten,  while  those  familiar  do  not. 
It  is  really  in  the  domain  of  the  simple  functioning  of 
their  organs — and  in  these  we  should  have  to  antici- 
pate the  consequent  subdivision  of  our  inquiry  from 
the  passive  or  receptive  to  the  active  and  functioning 
of  the  senses — that  we  can  again  discover  the  aesthetic 

30 


HARMONIOTROPISM  31 

principle  statically  symmetrical  or  rhythmically  and 
symmetrically  moving.  Thus,  in  all  the  functioning 
of  the  internal  life  of  animals  regularity  and  periodicity 
are  continuously  dominant,  while  in  their  outward 
activities  and  progression,  whether  it  be  walking  or 
running  on  two,  four,  or  more  legs,  or  even  crawling 
on  the  ground  like  a  snake,  or  the  flying  of  birds  and 
the  swimming  of  fishes,  we  can  discover  symmetrical 
and  rhythmical  action  in  these  organs  of  progression, 
or  rectilinear  or  curved  and  wavy  or  spiral  principles 
in  their  movement,  whether  in  the  air,  on  the  ground, 
or  in  the  water.  We  must  trace  it  in  all  its  phases 
of  animal  life  and  especially  in  the  lowest  and  simplest 
organisms  in  order  to  establish  its  objective  validity 
as  a  fundamental  instinct  in  mind,  as  well  as  a  force 
in  life  ;  and,  finally,  in  the  universe  as  a  whole.  We 
must  do  this  by  examining  the  structure  of  the  sensory 
organs,  their  development,  as  well  as  their  functioning 
(anatomically,  morphologically,  and  physiologically). 
We  must  thus  face  the  problems  of  the  elementary 
principles  of  life  and  sentience  in  the  organic  world, 
in  the  structure  and  the  development  of  organisms, 
as  well  as  in  their  simplest  functioning. 

In  dealing  with  this  aspect  of  the  question  we  must, 
for  the  time  being,  shift  our  point  of  view  from  man, 
with  his  fully  developed  nervous  system  and  organs 
of  sense-perception,  and  even  from  the  more  developed 
animals,  and  descend  to  the  study  of  the  lower 
organisms.  It  will  therefore  be  advisable  to  sub- 
stitute for  the  term  "  aesthetic  "  sense  and  perception, 
as  well  as  "  aesthetic  "  pleasure,  which  we  have  hitherto 
used,  some  term  conveying  the  fundamental  and  purely 
objective  nature  of  the  principle  applying  to  the  lower 
organisms  and  their  life  out  of  which  the  "  higher  " 
has  logically  and  by  the  actual  functioning  of  these 
organisms  grown.  The  terms  we  thus  use  for  the 
aesthetic  principle  in  its  simpler  and  lower  forms  are  the 


32  HARMONISTIC   PRINCIPLE 

harmonistic  principle  and  the  harmoniotropic  tendency 
or  instinct.  At  a  later  stage,  when  full  conscious- 
ness is  established,,  the  harmoniotropic  instinct  and 
functioning  of  the  human  mind  is  frequently  replaced 
by  the  form  which  I  call  aristotropism  l  in  mental 
activity. 

Now,  we  shall  find  as  we  proceed  that  all  the  higher 
aesthetic  sensations  and  mental  functions  in  man,  all 
conscious  or  subconscious  impulses,  activities,  as  well 
as  habits  and  instincts,  can  ultimately  be  reduced 
either  to  the  aristotropic  or  the  harmoniotropic 
faculties  and  principles  as  the  simplest  ultimate  and 
decisive  factors.  In  the  same  way  we  shall  find  that 
the  harmoniotropic  principle  constitutes  the  simplest 
and  ultimate  element  to  which  the  functions  and 
activities  of  all  organisms,  even  the  lowest,  must  be 
reduced  as  the  principles  of  life  and  mind  beyond 
which  we  cannot  descend.  We  may  even  find,  at 
a  more  metaphysical  later  stage  of  our  inquiry,  in 
the  Second  Part,  that  in  the  organic  world  and  the 
ultimate  active  principle  in  the  universe  is  the  same 
harmonistic  principle.  This  principle  also  prevails, 
whether  we  regard  all  life  ontogenetically  or  phylo- 
genetically  (in  the  development  of  the  living  being 
or  of  the  species),  morphologically  or  physiologically 
(the  form  as  well  as  the  functions  of  organs).  A 
fortiori  will  this  be  the  case  with  living  beings,  endowed 
with  perception,  feelings,  intelligence,  thoughts — a 
soul.  But  in  every  case  it  will  be  possible  not  only 
to  reduce  all  higher  mental  activities  of  man  to  this 
simple  elementary  principle,  but  also  to  understand 

1  Even  in  dealing  with  the  simplest  activities  of  the  lowest  organisms. 
Professor  Jennings  has  introduced  the  term  optimum,  which  by  analogy 
anticipates  this  complex  and  highly  developed  form  of  intelligent 
activity  in  what  I  call  aristotropism.  (See  Jennings,  Behaviour  of  the 
Lower  Organisms,  p.  295  :  "  Towards  or  away  from  the  optimum.  By 
optimum  we  mean  here  the  conditions  most  favourable  to  the  life  process 
of  the  organism  in  question.") 


ROMANES  33 

the  development  out  of  the  simplest  manifestation 
of  the  harmoniotropic  force  and  instinct  by  natural, 
gradual,  and  logical  growth  into  all  the  higher  forms 
of  mental  faculties  and  activities.  We  shall  thus 
find  that  the  harmonistic  principle  is  always  present 
and  active  in  all  phases  of  mental  life,  and  that  thus, 
at  least  as  a  hypothesis,  it  tends  to  explain  the 
phenomena  of  life  and  mind. 

From  the  very  outset  of  my  philosophical  in- 
quiries more  than  forty  years  ago,  after  a  whole  new 
field  of  inquiry  had  been  opened  out  to  me  during 
my  intercourse  and  studies  with  the  late  Professor 
Wundt  at  Heidelberg  and  Leipzig  from  1873  to  1876, 
I  felt  the  need  of  confirming  the  more  philosophical 
results  by  observation  and  experiment  in  the  new 
development  of  psycho-physics,  as  well  as  of  physio- 
logy and  biology.  It  was  between  the  years  1877  and 
1882  that  I  directly  turned  to  my  friend  the  late 
George  Romanes,  while  I  was  working  on  these  aesthetic 
principles  as  underlying  the  whole  of  mental  activity, 
and  inquired  of  him  whether  there  was  any  evidence 
furnished  by  his  own  researches  (which  at  the  time  he, 
as  well  as  Eimer,  were  so  successfully  carrying  on 
into  the  nervous  system  of  medusas  and  similar  organ- 
isms) to  warrant  my  generalisation.  I  felt  at  the 
time  that  the  real  crux  in  the  problem  of  the  evolution 
of  the  nervous  system  was  to  find  an  explanation  for 
the  step  from  purely  muscular  activity  to  nervous 
or  sensory  activity.  The  problem  appeared  to  me 
then,  as  it  does  now,  whether,  in  the  essential  nature 
of  excitation  and  receptivity  of  outer  stimuli  a  specific 
principle  could  be  detected  in  the  transition  from  the 
muscular  tissue  into  nervous  tissue.  The  hypothesis 
which  was  in  my  mind  at  the  time  was  that,  if,  by 
the  specific  outer  activity  of  stimuli,  as  well  as  the 
specific  quality  of  muscular  tissue  and  the  component 
cells,  it  could  be  assumed  that  regular  channels  were 
4 


34  HARMONISTIC   PRINCIPLE 

formed  in  the  muscular  organism,  the  regularity, 
identity,  or  even  similarity  of  repercussion  would 
establish  regularity  and  periodicity  of  receptive 
activity,  and  might  lead  to  the  formation  of  definite 
channels  or  fibres.  When  once  these  were  developed 
as  the  natural  structures  or  organs  for  receptivity  and 
transmission  they  could  by  such  continuous  concen- 
tration and  repercussion  produce  endings  to  collective 
stimulation  and  transfer  activities  both  in  an  afferent 
receptivity  of  stimuli  as  in  an  efferent  channel  of  force 
or  function  from  the  organism  itself  outwards.  Such 
a  hypothesis  would  to  some  degree  account  for  the 
evolution  of  the  nerve  fibres  and  ganglia  and  finally 
a  central  nervous  system.  My  friend  Romanes's 
replies  to  these  questions  were  most  encouraging. 
But  the  chief  and  central  point  of  my  inquiry  was 
(ultimately  from  the  aesthetic  point  of  view)  that  the 
nature  of  this  biological  and  morphological  process 
depended  in  its  essence  upon  the  distinctive  nature  of 
the  outer  stimulation  and  inner  receptive  agents 
which  was  again  to  be  found  in  the  regularity  and 
symmetry,  in  what  I  now  call  the  Harmonistic 
Principle  inherent  in  such  force  or  activity.  My 
direct  work  and  my  researches  on  this  problem 
were  interrupted  at  this  stage  for  many  years  until — 
though  many  confirmatory  sidelights  have  since  then 
accumulated — I  have  again  turned  to  them,  to  find 
that  the  stupendous  advance  made  in  that  period  in 
biological,  physiological,  and  psycho-physical  inquiry 
has  only  confirmed  my  conviction  as  to  the  effective 
and  universal  validity  of  that  principle  ;  though  at 
the  same  time  the  leading  theories  as  to  the  origin 
of  life  and  mind  have  developed  antagonistic  principles 
differing  from  the  system  I  would  adopt,  but  in 
reality,  I  venture  to  think,  strongly  confirming  it. 
I  must  therefore  now  turn  to  a  brief  consideration 
of  the  bearings  of  my  harmonistic  principle  as 


SYMMETRY   OF   STRUCTURE  35 

ultimately  underlying  the  development  of  life  and 
mind  in  the  light  of  the  leading  theories  of  the  present 
day  with  which  I  am  acquainted. 

To  begin  with  the  anatomical  and  morphological 
aspect  of  the  problem  :  one  fact  of  supreme  import- 
ance must  be  admitted,  namely,  that  the  cell  itself 
and  its  evolutionary  history,  as  of  all  the  minutest 
histological  elements,  are  distinctly  symmetrical  in 
their  structure  and  in  their  growth  and  multiplication, 
in  their  processes  of  segregation.  When  we  proceed 
to  more  developed  organisms  we  again  find  fully 
established  throughout  this  principle  of  symmetry, 
and  this  must  be  admitted  in  spite  of  differences 
between  the  parts  of  the  organism  in  the  regular 
geometrical  subdivision  of  the  sides,  front  and  back, 
upper  and  lower  parts.  This  regularity  of  "  orienta- 
tion," though  no  doubt  applying  to  all  objects  in  the 
universe  in  space,  has  supplied  a  more  definite  and 
fixed  centre  for  regular  orientation  in  those  separate 
units  and  organisms  which  have  an  independent 
existence  of  their  own  in  space  and,  especially  in 
those  that  live  and  move  and  depend  for  their  sub- 
sistence upon  such  orientation  and  direction  in  a  fixed 
geometrical  and  arithmetical  relationship,  the  distinct 
divisions  in  space  being  of  essential  importance. 

We  have  seen  above  how  the  somatocentric  and 
centrobaric  activities  of  organisms  have  a  direct  and 
important  bearing  on  the  origin  and  development  of 
sentience  and  higher  mental  functions.  In  the  more 
complex  structures  of  higher  organisms  the  further 
we  advance  the  less  reason  there  is  to  doubt  that  some 
of  these  oriented  parts,  in  which  the  symmetrical 
principle  on  the  whole  prevails,  are  not  symmetrical. 
Thus  the  front  and  back  may  differ  in  line  and  form 
as  well  as  the  upper  and  lower  portions  and,  in  some 
cases,  the  right  and  left  ;  and  such  differences  within 
the  prevailing  symmetry  are  perhaps  most  marked 


36  HARMONISTIC   PRINCIPLE 

in  the  higher  organisms,  the  higher  we  rise  in  the  scale 
of  organic  beings.  Thus  the  different  parts  of  the 
human  body,  as  we  proceed  from  the  head  to  the  feet, 
and  when  we  contrast  the  front  with  the  back  view, 
are  markedly  different  and  differentiated,  as  also  the 
several  internal  organs  are  not  all  of  them  reduplicated 
and  are  placed  singly  on  either  side  of  the  body.  But 
in  the  main  system  of  structure  symmetry  prevails 
in  that  there  is  a  regular  bisection  of  the  two  halves 
of  the  body,  symmetrically  corresponding  to  one 
another,  as  also  the  main  organs  of  activity  and 
locomotion  are  those  symmetrically  dualistic — especi- 
ally all  organs  concerned  with  sentience  and  con- 
sciousness. 

If  this  symmetrical  and  harmonistic  principle 
prevails  in  the  main  outlines  of  structure,  this  is  still 
more  the  case  as  regards  the  regularity  of  functioning 
in  time  and  the  rhythmical  principle  of  movement 
in  the  main  acts  of  living,  of  self-preservation,  and  of 
locomotion.  It  has  quite  recently  been  maintained 
by  Professor  Kofoid  "  that  the  protoplasm  of  single- 
celled  animals  known  as  Ciliates  and  Flagellates 
exhibited  definite  structural  regions  to  be  compared 
with  the  muscles  and  nerves  of  higher  animals,  and 
that  the  motions  of  these  actively  swimming,  sensitive 
drops  of  protoplasm  had  brought  about  changes  in 
structure ;  a  division  of  the  cell  into  right  and  left 
sides  which  could  be  traced  through  the  processes  of 
reproduction.11 

But  in  dealing  with  the  anatomical  and  morpho- 
logical aspect  of  the  question  as  manifested  in  the 
structure  of  the  animal  world,  the  same  principle  of 
symmetry  has  been  amply  shown  to  be  present  and 
active  in  the  plant  world,  as  also  in  those  interesting 
transitional  forms  in  which  heliotropic  activity  has 
been  manifest  and  has  been  turned  to  such  good 
purpose  in  throwing  new  light  upon  the  region  of  the 


EVOLUTION   OF   NERVOUS   SYSTEM        37 

sensory    organs,    especially    by    such    biologists    as 
Professor  Loeb. 

Researches  on  the  elementary  nervous  system  have 
recently  been  summarised  by  Professor  G.  H.  Parker.1 
Without  considering  for  the  moment  the  more  highly 
developed  nervous  system  in  man  and  in  the  higher 
animals,  we  find  that  in  the  earthworm  the  neurones, 
i.e.  "  the  simple  cellular  elements,"  are,  according  to 
Parker,  "  arranged  upon  a  comparatively  uniform 
plan."  The  spiral  nerve  and  spiral  chord  of  such 
vertebrates  show  a  certain  symmetrical  arrangement 
in  the  disposition  of  the  sensory  and  motor  neurones. 
When  we  proceed  still  further  down  to  the  whole 
group  of  sea-anemones,  jelly-fish,  etc.,  especially  the 
ccelenterates,  we  meet  with  the  receptor-effector 
system  and  the  proto-neurones,  in  which  the  nervous 
activities  are  as  yet  uncentralised  and  the  sensory 
nerve-net  is  diffused  in  its  action  and  near  the  surface, 
the  tendency  being  more  and  more  to  concentrate 
these  sensory  organs  away  from  the  surface,  from  the 
epithelial  region,  retreating  inwards,  and  being  thus 
protected  and  strengthened,  so  that,  in  the  step  from 
the  coelenterates  to  the  earthworm,  we  come  from 
the  diffuse  epithelial  regions  to  the  central  band  of 
tissue.  But  in  all  these  organisms,  as  in  the  sea- 
anemone,  the  diffused  nervous  transmission  of  the 
nerve-nets  has  a  tendency  to  form  definite  tracts, 
which  mark  the  beginning  of  a  central  nervous  system 
ending  in,  besides  receptor  and  effector,  the  adjuster, 
the  central  nervous  organs  in  the  higher  animals.  But 
in  all  these  earlier  stages  we  note  the  dominance 
either  of  polarisation  in  function  or  of  what  is  called 
synapsis,  a  function  in  one  direction  only,  which 
marks  a  most  important  step  in  the  evolution  of  the 
central  nervous  system.  In  any  case,  however,  we 

1  The   Elementary   Nervous    System    (Lippincott   Co.,    Philadelphia 
and  London,  1919). 


38  HARMONISTIC   PRINCIPLE 

can  discover  the  more  or  less  pronounced  effectiveness 
of  regular  geometrical  or  symmetrical  principles. 
The  same  holds  good  in  the  still  earlier  stages  and 
more  elementary  conditions  of  animal  life  in  the 
sponges,  where  we  cannot  yet  establish  neurones  or 
proto-neurones  but  where  what  might  be  called  a  neuro- 
muscular  mechanism  exists.  In  the  canal  system  of 
the  calcareous  sponge  the  superficial  pores  receivewater 
from  the  exterior  in  definite  directions,  and  by  a  regular 
process  of  muscular  contraction  and  relaxation 
pass  through  the  canal  and  are  ejected  at  the  osculum 
at  the  apex.  But  it  will  be  admitted  that  not  only 
in  the  organic  structure  of  the  sponges,  but  in  their  rudi- 
mentary functioning  in  receiving  and  ejecting  water — 
which  itself  generally  is  received  from  without  in  regular 
or  rhythmical  periodicity  inherent  in  waves  or  currents 
— the  principle  of  symmetry  is  predominant. 

However,  in  dealing  with  the  anatomical  and 
morphological  aspect  of  the  question  as  manifested 
in  the  structure  of  these  earliest  organisms  and  their 
several  organs,  we  find  that  these  are  directly  depend- 
ent upon  stimulation,  function,  and  various  activities 
in  the  very  development  of  these  several  organ -forms. 
We  are  thus  driven  to  face  the  main  problems  of  these 
biological  functions  themselves,  the  physiology  of 
these  lower  organisms. 

It  is  here  that,  in  recent  times,  the  main  problem 
of  the  physiology  and  evolution  of  the  nervous  system 
has  been  dealt  with  in  two  main  directions  which 
stand  opposed  to  one  another. 

These  two  main  fundamental  points  of  view  and 
theories,  which  thus  stand  in  direct  opposition  to 
one  another,  might  best  be  termed  the  Mechanistic 
and  the  Vitalistic  Theories  of  Life  and  Mind  ;  the 
one  most  definitely  represented  by  Professor  Loeb  1 

1  This  difference  has  been  put  by  Professor  Loeb  in  several  passages, 
e.g.  Physiology  of  the  Brain  and  Comparative  Psychology,  p.  10  seq. 


MECHANISTIC  AND   VITALISTIC  39 

and  his  various  writings,  the  other  by  Professor 
Driesch.  Professor  Loeb  maintains  that  biological 
science  cannot  remain  content,  and  has  not  really 
solved  the  chief  problems  of  that  science,  unless,  by 
means  of  exact  observation,  coupled  with  experiment, 
it  can  ultimately  reduce  all  the  phenomena  of  organic 
life  to  the  mechanistic  principle  and,  ultimately,  to 
the  physico-chemical  force,  and  even  to  the  final 
chemical  element  out  of  which  the  phenomena  of  life 
and  of  psychic  activity  evolve.  The  Vitalists,  on 
the  other  hand,  discover,  even  in  the  simplest  funda- 
mental forms  of  organic  life,  the  element  of  "  purpose- 
fulness,"  the  entelechy,  which  underlies  the  activity 
of  the  simplest  organic  units  and  out  of  which,  by 
natural  process,  sentience  and  all  psychic  activities 
are  in  due  course  evolved.  These  two  monistic  views 
stand  in  direct  opposition  to  one  another. 

With  whatever  respect  and  admiration  we  must 
regard  the  theories  and  conscientious  experiments 
and  investigations  of  the  numerous  biologists  who 
belong  to  either  of  these  opposed  schools,  the  unbiased 
but  critical  mind,  which  must  in  the  last  instance 
weigh  the  evidence  presented  by  such  thorough 
observation  and  experiment  and  has  the  right  to  test 
their  validity,  cannot  remain  satisfied  with  either  for 
the  ultimate  explanations  of  these  all-important 
phenomena  of  biological  science.  It  cannot  further 
the  solution  of  these  problems  to  fall  into  the  very 
error  with  which  the  experimental  scientist  charges 
his  opponents  "  by  substituting  mere  words  for  facts  fl 
and  classifying  all  differing  views  under  the  deprecia- 
tory term  of  "  metaphysics."  This  charge  is  itself 
a  flagrant  instance  of  such  use  of  mere  words.  The 
final  test  of  all  evidence,  including  that  based  upon 
observation  and  experiment,  is  unbiased  reason  ;  and 
this  can  justifiably  and  profitably  be  applied  by  the 
sympathetic  student  who  carefully  follows  the 


40  HARMONISTIC   PRINCIPLE 

recorded    observations     and    experiments     of     the 
biologist. 

In  spite  of  the  most  remarkable  and  striking 
evidence  adduced  by  Professor  Loeb,  I  cannot  feel 
that  he  is  successful  in  explaining  fully  the  funda- 
mental principles  of  sentience  on  the  grounds  of  pure 
mechanism  or  physico-chemical  forces.  You  might 
accumulate  and  strengthen  the  mechanistic  principle 
to  the  infinite  degree,  you  will  not  account  for  or 
explain  the  phenomenon  of  sentience.  On  the  other 
hand,  the  vitalistic  theory,  with  its  concept  entelechy 
or  "  purposefulness  n  inherent  in  the  elementary 
organs  of  sentience,  connotes  to  so  high  a  degree  the 
anthropomorphic,  human,  or  personal  element,  that 
it  cannot  satisfy  the  scientific  mind  as  to  the  explana- 
tion of  the  essential  factor  out  of  which  sentience 
grows.  Now  I  venture  to  believe  that  the  principle 
of  Harmonism  and  of  harmoniotropic  tendency  or 
function  inherent  in  all  the  simplest  elements  con- 
cerned in  psychical,  as  well  as  in  physiological  and 
physical  elements,  will  supply  to  mechanistic  activity 
that  requisite  element  which  may  help  us  to  under- 
stand the  activity  of  those  mechanistic  forces  which 
ultimately  lead  to  sentience.  On  the  other  hand,  it 
will  dissolve  the  anthropomorphic  and  personal 
element  inherent  in  such  concepts  as  entelechy  and 
"  purposefulness  "  ;  while  substituting,  in  an  imper- 
sonal and  objective  form,  throughout  the  whole  of 
nature  as  well  as  in  man,  his  mental  processes,  his 
designed  wills  and  aims,  the  harmonistic  principle 
for  that  more  subjective  and  human  factor  which 
these  concepts  of  the  vitalist  undoubtedly  contain, 
and  thus  provide  an  explanation  of  the  origin  and 
development  of  life  and  mind.1 

1  Entelechy  and  "  purposefulness  "  in  this  sphere  of  biological  inquiry 
appear  to  me  to  have  the  same  defects  as  those  which  in  other  passages  (see 
chapter  on  Pragmatics)  I  have  ascribed  to  the  concepts  Pragmatism  and 


HARMONISM   RECONCILES  41 

I  even  believe  that  in  the  remarkable  inquiries  into 
the  integrative  action  of  the  nervous  system  which  have 
led  Professor  Sherrington  1  to  such  important  results, 
the  application  of  the  harmoniotropic  principle  will  go 
far  to  make  these  results  more  effective  in  explaining  the 
underlying  principle  of  integration  and  co-ordination 
of  movements  in  the  lowest  organisms.  The  same  may 
even  apply  to  the  "  taxis  "  of  Professor  Jennings,1 
"  concepts  "  and  "  tonus  "  of  Professor  Uexkuell.1 

I  maintain  that  both  these  antagonistic  theories 
will  fail  as  monistic  explanations  of  natural  phenomena 
because  they  are  too  doctrinaire  and  (if  I  may  say  so 
without  offence)  too  "  metaphysical."  For  such  a 
monistic  principle  we  may  have  to  substitute  not 
even  a  dualistic  conception,  but  a  triadic  principle. 
The  harmonistic  and  harmoniotropic  principle  of  life 
and  mind  manifests  itself,  not  only  in  one  form,  but 
in  three  forms,  the  union  of  which  is  essential  to 
account  for  all  those  phenomena  on  which  the  several 
biologists — whether  they  belong  to  the  mechanistic 
or  the  vitalistic  camp — base  their  conclusions.  I 
venture  to  maintain  that  there  is  not  a  single  observa- 
tion or  experiment  recorded  by  biologists  explanatory 
of  the  phenomena  they  investigated,  and  on  which 
their  general  principle  is  based,  in  which  three  different 
manifestations  of  harmonism  and  harmoniotropism 
cannot  be  discerned  as  effective  and  even  indis- 
pensable. The  first  of  these  tripartite  manifestations 
of  harmonism  is  inherent  in  the  receptive  organ  and 

Utility  in  relation  to  Art,  Ethics,  and  Human  Life.  They  are  dis- 
tinctly "  opportunistic,"  and  can  only  apply  to  definite  individual 
complex  conditions,  varying  with  the  purpose  and  aim  in  each 
individual  case,  but  do  not  furnish  us  with  an  impersonal  "  law  "  or 
principle  unvaryingly  active  in  the  same  direction. 

1  The  Integrative  Action  of  the  Nervous   System   (Yale   University 
Press  and  Oxford  University  Press,  1906). 

2  Behaviour  of  the  Lower  Organisms  (Columbia  University  Press,  1906). 

3  Leitfaden  in  das  Studium  der  experimentellen  Biologie  der  Wasser- 
thiere  (Wiesbaden,  1905). 


42  HARMONISTIC   PRINCIPLE 

its  quality — a  symmetrical  or  harmonic  quality  of  the 
organ,  which  is  stimulated,  whether  this  be  in  the  form 
of  neurones,  ganglia,  or  higher  central  organs,  or 
merely  in  the  muscular  tissue  manifesting  a  special 
form  of  "  irritability  "  or  "  conduct ibility."  The 
second  aspect  of  harmonism  appertains  to  the  outer 
stimulus,  what  might  roughly  be  called  the  "  laws  of 
nature  "  ;  even  though  the  stimuli  may  be  reduced 
to  purely  physico-chemical  activities,  such  as  photo- 
chemistry (which  Professor  Loeb,  no  doubt  with 
conscious  poetic  licence,  would  sometimes  call  the 
"  will  "  or  the  "  soul  "  of  the  organism  affected). 
The  third  harmonistic  aspect  is  the  harmonistic 
relation  between  each  instance  of  stimulation  and 
receptivity.  The  coincidence  of  these  three  harmon- 
isms  is  essential  to  anything  of  the  nature  of  sentience. 
The  activities  of  outer  nature  in  every  form — even 
if  we  reduce  it  to  physico-chemical  factors,  or  even 
to  one  physico-chemical  element — are  active  in 
the  universe  and  are  present  to,  or  press  upon, 
the  organism  continuously.  They  may  affect  one 
organism  as  they  affect  the  objects  of  inorganic 
nature  without  producing  any  biological  or  psycho- 
logical result.  They  may  even  affect  certain  parts  of 
the  organism  and  not  others  ;  and  they  may  even 
affect  the  same  part  at  one  time  and  not  at  another. 
There  are  billions — in  fact  innumerable — stimulations 
of  this  kind  active  ;  but  only  just  one  produces  the 
biological  or  psychological  stimulation  which  the 
observer  and  experimenter  notes.  It  is  in  the 
harmony  between  the  outer  stimulus  and  the  receptive, 
as  well  as  functioning,  organism  that  a  new  relation 
is  established  which  culminates  in  the  biological 
phenomenon  underlying  all  forms  of  sentience,  even 
the  most  elementary.  It  is  this  triadic  principle 
which  must  be  substituted  for  the  monistic  principle. 
But  the  essential  factor  in  these  three  aspects  of  the 


THE   TRIADIC   FUNCTION  43 

same  principle  is,  after  all,  Harmonism.  When  this 
triadic  harmony  is,  by  habit  or  instinct,  consciously 
or  subconsciously  aimed  at  ;  when  once  sentience  is 
established  with  success  and  completion  results  in 
the  activity  of  any  organism  and  after  the  harmonio- 
tropic  instinct  is  effective,  sentience  and  higher  mental 
activities  then  manifest  themselves.1 

In  spite  of  the  criticism  of  the  mechanistic  theory 
of  life  and  mind  contained  or  implied  in  what  has 
just  been  said  above,  I  gladly  admit  that  Professor 
Loeb's  Mechanistic  Theory  is  the  safest  method  to  be 
applied  by  the  biologist  as  promising  the  most  positive 
and  scientific  results.  Above  all,  it  ensures  against 
the  obtrusion  of  the  personal  equation  in  the  re- 
searcher, which  can  be  summarised  under  the  term 
"  idols."  8  Yet  I  cannot  see  how  the  acceptance  of 
the  Harmonistic  Theory  can  in  any  way  exert  a  dis- 
turbing influence  upon  the  strict  pursuit  of  observa- 
tion and  experiment  on  mechanistic  lines.  On  the 
contrary,  the  results  of  his  own  researches  and  those 
of  his  fellow-workers  distinctly  tend  to  confirm  the 
principle  of  harmonism  and  of  harmoniotropism  which 
reinforced  the  effectiveness  of  the  various  tropisms 
(heliotropism,  geotropism,  chemotropism,  galvano- 
tropism,  etc.).  Symmetry  or  some  other  form  or 
modification  of  harmonism  prevails  in  every  aspect 
of  such  observations  and  experiments  and  the  results 
deduced  from  them. 

1  We  shall  see  in  Ft.  II,  Chap.  I,  how  this  same  current  of  harmonio- 
tropic  activity,  developing  into  the  aristotropic  force,  manifests  itself 
in  the  imagination. 

3  It  will  be  seen  in  the  first  chapter  of  Part  II,  on  Epistemology,  that 
I  there  maintain  that  all  observational  and  experimental  sciences  reach 
their  highest  point  when  results  can  be  verified  by  experiments  and 
by  "  synthetic  "  reproduction  of  natural  bodies,  which  again  implies 
that  they  approach  the  stage  in  which  the  elements  and  data  of  their 
scientific  generalisation  can  be  represented  by  mathematical  or  arith- 
metical relationships,  which  when  applied  to  words  and  not  to  forms 
and  numbers  means  pure  logic. 


44  HARMONISTIC   PRINCIPLE 

1.  To  begin  with  the  organs  themselves,  their  con- 
stitution and  their  function,  they  all  manifest  a  har- 
monistic  form  or  tendency.     The  generality  of  such 
organs  is  dualistic,  distributed  on  either  side  of  the 
animal,  and  in  their  functions  they  thus  tend  to  act  in 
a  regular  geometrical  line  or  in  rhythmical  succession 
in    time.     When   not    dualistic,    we   shall   see    that, 
while  no  longer  following  the  rectilinear  or  straight- 
line  system,  they  function  in  a  spiral  or  curved  line, 
again  manifesting  geometrical  regularity  or  harmony. 
In  any  case  "  irritability  "  and  "  conductibility,"  as 
we   shall   see,    are   of    those   qualities   which    imply 
response  to  regular  stimulation  in  all  truly  biological 
functioning  or  stimulation.     The  degree  of  "  facility  " 
as  regards  the  reception  of  stimuli — of  "  facility  "  in 
contradistinction  to  complete  adaptation  of  definite 
tracts  or  organs  for  the  function  of  receiving  stimuli 
and  of  regular  reaction  to  them  (such  as  Professor 
Loeb   ascribes   to   muscular  tissue   in   opposition   to 
those  who  uphold  the  necessity  of  nerve-ganglia  to 
account  for  "  instincts  ") — merely  marks  a  difference 
of  degree  and  not  of  kind  in  the  harmonistic  nature  of 
such  receptive  bodies. 

2.  When  we  come  to  the  outer  stimulation  of  those 
physico-chemical  "  laws  "  which  are  assumed  by  the 
mechanistic  school  to  furnish  the  complete  explanation 
of  all  biological  and  psychical  phenomena  in  these 
lowest  organisms,   I  need  not  waste  much  time  in 
insisting  upon  the  fact  that  these  "  laws  "  essentially 
connote  the  most  complete  and,  at  times,  the  most 
complex  regularity  or  relationship  in  time  and  space, 
and  ultimately  present  themselves  to  us  in  geometrical 
or  arithmetical  formulae  illustrating  the  purest  regu- 
larity and  harmony.     I  shall  dwell  upon  this  fact  in 
the  first  chapter  of  Part  II,  in  relation  to  Epistemology, 
the  origin  and  development  of  "  knowledge." 

3.  But  when  the  mechanist  maintains  that  he  can 


HARMONIOTROPISM  45 

now,   or   hopes   in   the   future  to,  explain   fully  the 
phenomena  of  life  and  sentience  by  these  physico- 
chemical  factors  of  the  outer  world  in  any  individual 
organism,  he  overshoots  the  mark.     We  cannot  for 
a  moment  admit,  on  the  ground  of  the  very  striking 
and  numerous   experiments   adduced   in  support   of 
such  a  view,  that,  for  instance,  the  Bunsen-Roscoe 
photo-chemical  law,  or  even  those  laws  of  movement 
of  light  on  the  optic  nerve  as  shown  by  S.  S.  Maxwell 
and  C.  D.  Snyder,  can  be  considered  the  (<  will  "  of 
the  winged  aphids  or  any  other  organisms — "  that  in 
this  instance  the  light  is  the  '  will  '  of  the  animal 
which  determined  the  direction  of  its  movement,  just 
as  its  gravity  in  the  case  of  a  falling  stone  or  the 
movement  of  a  plant."  l     Adopting  the  same  poetic 
licence,  I  might  say  that  it  is  neither  the  light  nor  the 
light-receiving  organs  of  the  aphid,  but  the  relation 
between  the  two,  which  produces  the  phenomenon, 
both  being  attuned  harmonically  and,  as  far  as  we 
may  even  in  figurative  speech  use  the  term,  "  will." 
It  is  the  harmoniotropic  force  inherent  in  the  aphid, 
that   which   necessarily,    all-constrainingly,    subjects 
it  to  the  harmonic  activity  in  natural  laws,  and  in  its 
own  organisation   and   functioning  power,   which  is 
the   "  will  "   accountable   for   the   deed   or   activity. 
The  preliminary  activity  is  on  both  sides,  and  the 
consummation    is    due    to    the    harmonic    principle 
inherent    in    both    and   active   in   combining    them. 
Thus,  again  to  quote  Professor  Loeb  himself  : 

"  if  a  positively  heliotropic  animal  is  illuminated 
from  one  side,  a  compulsory  turning  of  the  head 
toward  the  source  of  light  occurs  only  when  the 

1  Loeb,  The  Mechanistic  Conception  of  Life,  p.  40  (University  of 
Chicago  Press,  1912).  See  also  Loeb,  Physiology  of  the  Brain  and  Com- 
parative Psychology,  xi,  "  Relationships  between  Orientation  and 
Function  of  certain  Elements  of  the  Segmental  Ganglia"  (Putnam's 
Sons,  New  York,  and  John  Murray,  1900). 


46  HARMONISTIC   PRINCIPLE 

difference    in    the    rate    of    certain    photo-chemical 
reactions  in  the  two  eyes  reaches  a  certain  value." 

It  will  here  be  seen  how  the  functional  activity  of 
the  animal  is  as  essential  to  the  phenomenon  as  is 
the  stimulation  without  ;  and  it  will  be  seen  how 
subtly  important  it  is  that  the  relationships  between 
the  two  should  exactly  synchronise  and  harmonise, 
when  the  passage  quoted  proceeds  : 

"  If  the  intensity  of  the  light  is  sufficient  and  the 
active  mass  of  photo-chemical  substance  in  the  animal 
great  enough,  it  requires  only  a  short  time,  for 
instance,  the  fraction  of  a  second,  before  the  difference 
in  the  mass  of  the  reaction  products  formed  on  the 
two  sides  of  the  animal  reaches  the  value  necessary 
for  the  compulsory  turning  of  the  head  toward  the 
source  of  light.  In  this  case  the  animal  is  a  slave  of 
the  light  ;  in  other  words,  it  has  hardly  time  to 
deviate  from  the  direction  of  the  light  rays  ;  for  if  it 
turns  the  head  even  for  the  fraction  of  a  second  from 
the  direction  of  the  light  rays,  the  difference  in  the 
photo-chemical  reaction  products  in  the  two  retinae 
becomes  so  great  that  the  head  is  at  once  turned  back 
automatically  toward  the  source  of  light.  But  if  the 
intensity  of  the  light  or  the  photo-sensitiveness  of 
the  animal  is  lessened  the  animal  may  deviate  for 
a  longer  period  from  the  direction  of  the  light  rays/1 

It  will  here  be  seen  how  delicate  and  all-important 
is  this  harmonic  relation  between  stimulation  and 
receptivity,  and  how  the  final  effect  depends  essen- 
tially upon  the  harmonic  quality  of  the  receptor,  as 
well  as  of  the  stimuli,  and,  above  all,  the  harmony 
between  the  two.  Nor  can  I  admit  the  conclusion  of 
Professor  Loeb  when  he  proceeds  to  say  : 

"  It  is  therefore  not  a  case  of  a  qualitative,  but  of 
a  quantitative,  difference  in  the  behaviour  of  helio- 
tropic  animals  under  greater  or  lesser  illumination, 
and  it  is  therefore  erroneous  to  assert  that  helio- 


STIMULATION   AND   RECEPTIVITY          47 

tropism  determines  the  movement  of  animals  toward 
the  source  of  light  only  under  strong  illumination, 
but  that  under  weaker  illumination  an  essentially 
different  condition  exists." 

It  is  neither  the  mere  quantity  or  quality  of  the 
light  alone,  nor  of  the  animal  alone,  but  in  the  har- 
monic relationship  between  the  two  that  the  effects 
are   produced.     Whatever   changes   may   be   experi- 
mentally  produced    in    the    animal    to    heighten    or 
diminish  its  photosensitiveness,  the  result  cannot  be 
ascribed  wholly  to  one  or  other  element,  as  little  as 
(and  here  I  may  indeed  lay  myself  open  to  the  charge 
of  using  "  rhetoric  ")  we  claim  to  explain  the  fact 
that  an  orator,  poet,  or  musician  can  or  cannot  make 
good  speeches,  write  beautiful  verses,  or  produce  good 
music  when  he  is  drunk,  by  maintaining  that  it  is  the 
alcohol  which  has  or  has  not  produced  these  mani- 
festations of  art.     His  nerves  and  brain  are  certainly 
under  different  conditions  through  alcoholic  stimula- 
tion ;   but  it  still  remains  through  them  and  through 
the  will  of  his  individual  personality  that  the  works 
of  art   are   produced   by  him.     When   it   is   further 
maintained  l   that   "  heliotropic   phenomena  are  de- 
termined by  the  relative  rates  of  chemical  reactions 
occurring    simultaneously    in    symmetrical    surface 
elements  of  an  animal,"  it  is  essential  to  remember 
that    we    have    already   granted    the    "  symmetrical 
surface    elements  "    as    well    as    the    "  simultaneous 
occurrence,"  which  are  in  their  essence  manifestations 
of  the  harmonistic  principle.     In  fact,  the  sensitive- 
ness of  the  animal  varies,  and  Professor  Loeb  has 
thus  given  a  definite  term  to  the  variations  of  the 
sensitive  receptors,  namely,  "  differential  sensibility  " 
(Unterschiedsempfindlichkeit).      He     rightly     reminds 
us  8  that  "  the  progress  of  natural  science  depends 

1  Op.  cit.,  p.  54.  a  Op.  cit.,  p.  59. 


43  HARMONISTIC   PRINCIPLE 

upon  the  discovery  of  rationalistic  elements  or  simple 
natural  laws  "  ;  but  he  has  also  shown  that  photo- 
chemical stimulation  does  not  entirely  depend  for 
specific  reactions  on  the  part  of  the  organism  upon 
the  symmetrical  surface  elements  of  the  animal. 
Thus,  the  Ranatra  and  robber-fly,  as  shown  by  experi- 
ments of  Parker,  Holmes,  Carrey,  and  others,1  while 
following  a  straight  line  when  possessed  of  the  use  of 
two  eyes,  will  follow  definite  curved  or  spiral  lines 
when  one  eye  is  blackened.  In  all  these  cases,  how- 
ever, the  result  of  the  activity  follows  definite  geo- 
metrical directions,  and  the  whole  process  of  such 
accommodation  in  asymmetrical  animals  as  well 
shows  the  dominance  of  the  principle  of  harmonism. 
We  are  thus  inevitably  driven  to  the  conclusion 
that  the  laws  of  nature,  including  the  physico- 
chemical  forces,  manifest  to  the  highest  degree  the 
principle  of  harmonism,  and  that  in  the  chemical 
process  what  has  roughly  been  termed  Chemical 
Affinity  is  one  of  the  most  perfect  expressions  of  the 
connotation  of  harmony.  But  this  same  affinity 
and  harmony  must  be  extended  to  the  nature  of  the 
receptive  organ  in  order  that  a  new  affinity  or  harmony 
be  established  which  results  in  the  biological  and 
psychical  activities.8  Not  only,  whether  the  receptive 
substance  is  hard  or  soft,  warm  or  cold,  a  stone  or  a 
muscular  or  nerve  tissue,  will  these  forces  act  differ- 
ently upon  them  ;  but  in  every  case  it  depends  upon 
just  that  harmony  of  relationship  between  all  the 
three  factors  to  produce  each  definite  phenomenon. 
I  may  also  add  that,  in  spite  of  the  general  objection 
which,  as  stated  above,  I  have  to  the  vitalistic  theory 
as  expounded  by  Professor  Driesch,  because  of  the 

1  Loeb,  Forced  Movements,  Tropisms,  and  Animal  Conduct,  p.  52 
seq.  (Lippincott  Co.,  Philadelphia  and  London,  1918). 

a  It  will  help  the  general  reader,  in  the  whole  course  of  these  argu- 
ments to  establish  the  harmonistic  principle,  to  bear  in  mind  the 
analogy  of  wireless  telegraphy. 


HABIT   AND   INSTINCT  49 

anthropomorphic  concepts  of  entelechy  and  ' '  purpose- 
fulness,"  I  feel  that  in  some  of  his  ideas  and  expositions 
—notably  when,  for  instance,  he  refers  to  "  har- 
monious equipotential  systems  " ' — I  find  myself  in 
many  points  in  agreement  with  his  conclusions. 

We  have  seen  above  (see  Chaps.  II,  III)  how  in  the 
higher  organisms,  notably  in  the  human  being  from 
birth  upwards,  through  the  agency  of  what  we  called 
somatocentric  and  centrobaric  movement,  the  develop- 
ment of  consciousness  and,  finally,  of  self-conscious- 
ness was  distinctly  furthered,  if  not  produced.  In 
the  case  of  the  lower  organisms  with  which  we  are 
here  dealing,  we  can  more  or  less  understand  how 
sentience  develops  into  functional  activities  through 
the  formation  of  "  habit  "  and  "  instinct,"  and  how 
the  morphological  development,  leading  to  the 
evolution  of  the  nervous  system,  is  established  through 
the  effective  intermediary  influence  of  the  harmonistic 
principle.  It  can  hardly  be  maintained  that  in  the 
morphological  aspect  of  this  question  the  introduction 
of  the  harmonistic  principle  should  not  be  helpful  in 
every  one  of  the  theories  of  evolution,  including  not 
only  those  based  upon  biological  experiments,  but 
also  those  which  apply  the  Mendelian  principle  of 
observation  to  selective  heredity  in  time.  For, 
beginning  with  the  receptive  muscular  tissue  of  the 
surface  of  organisms  and  rising,  through  all  the  stages 
of  the  development  of  nervous  tissue,  to  nerve- 
centres  of  the  highest  order,  we  can  see  how,  in  the 
accumulation  in  time  and  in  space  (i.e.  of  the  actual 
modification  of  the  receptive  tissue  itself  in  space  and 
through  stimulation  in  time),  the  repercussion  of  stimuli 
would  not  be  effective  in  producing  the  morphological 
changes  which  lead  to  the  development  of  the  nervous 
system,  without  the  harmonistic  principle  in  space  and 

1  History  and  Theory  of  Vitalism,  pp.  208-9  (authorised  translation 
by  C.  K.  Ogden,  Macmillan  &  Co.,  1914). 

5 


50  HARMONISTIC   PRINCIPLE 

time  to  act  as  the  "  cement  "  between  the  individual 
"  building  blocks  "  of  the  structure.  Out  of  the 
regular  repercussion  of  currents,  forming  regular  or 
symmetrical  channels,  so  that  not  only  outer  stimula- 
tions but  also  the  inner  functioning  and  spontaneous 
impulse  or  activity  in  the  organism  run  in  this  same 
direction  and  produce  similar  symmetrical  activities, 
there  is  formed  what  by  analogy  we  may  call  "  habit," 
and  such  "  habit  "  subconsciously  produces  certain 
activities  or  actions  even  though  attention  and 
consciousness  be  concentrated  in  other  directions. 
The  step  from  this  habitual  subconscious  or  even 
unconscious  activity  to  the  establishment  of  instinct 
is  a  natural  and  logical  one,  and  also  (and  this  we 
shall  further  see  in  the  chapter  on  Epistemology) 
accounts  for  the  development  of  memory  and 
association  and,  through  them,  of  higher  mental 
activities.  But  in  all  phases  of  this  gradual  evolution 
it  will  be  found  that  the  harmonistic  principle  of 
symmetry,  be  it  through  identity  and  repercussion, 
affinity,  or  inherent  association,  is  fundamentally  the 
active  principle.  We  must  further  note  that  it  is 
finally  in  the  triadic  aspect  of  this  harmony  that, 
when  in  the  mental  activities  of  the  highest  organisms 
this  triadic  harmony  is  consciously  or  subconsciously 
(by  habit  or  instinct)  aimed  at,  the  designed  or 
purposed  or  willed  action  is  completed,  and  that  the 
harmoniotropic  instinct  is  directly  effective.1  We 
thus  rise  from  the  earliest  origins  of  sentience  through 
reflex  action,  as  well  as  subconscious  or  habitual 
activity,  to  instinct,  and  from  consciousness  to  self- 
consciousness,  and,  finally,  to  designed  self-assertion 
and  self-repression,  to  fore-  and  after-thought,  and 
all  highest  mental  and  moral  activities. 

1  We  shall  see  in  the  chapter  on  Epistemology  (Part  II)  how  the 
function  of  imagination  plays  an  important  part  in  this  process  in 
the  human  mind. 


UTILITY  AND  HARMONY  51 

As  we  have  seen,  the  symmetrical  motion,  when 
not  curved,  leads  us  to  the  straight  line,  and  thus  to 
the  line  of  least  resistance  and  the  economy  of  move- 
ment, function,  or  perception.  And  it  is  here  that 
what  might  thus  be  called  the  utilitarian  or  economic 
element  meets  with,  and  is  identified  with,  the 
aesthetic  principle  of  proportion  and  symmetry. 
Now,  biological  researches  during  the  last  hundred 
years  have  gone  to  show  us  how  in  the  rudimentary 
forms  of  animal  life  the  continuous  functioning  of 
any  organs,  and  even  of  the  continuous  line  of 
stimulation  which  precedes  and  leads  over  to  the 
development  of  such  an  organ,  is  by  the  continuity 
of  such  a  line  productive  of  a  regular  symmetrical 
channel. 


CHAPTER  V 

HARMONIOTROPISM    IN    HUMAN    LIFE   AND    THE    DOMIN- 
ANCE   OF   THE    ESTHETIC   ATTITUDE    OF   MIND 

WHEN  we  leave  this  elementary  phase  in  which  we 
have  recognised  the  dominance  of  the  principle  of 
proportion  and  harmony  in  the  constitution  of  the 
senses  of  man  in  their  relation  to  perception,  and 
assuming  the  full  and  conscious  development  of  the 
sensory  organs  in  man,  namely,  his  perception  of 
nature  and  its  objects,  the  effect  of  these  aesthetic 
principles  upon  the  formation,  the  development,  and 
the  habituation  of  the  perceptive  senses  and  their 
functions  becomes  still  more  manifest. 

In  dealing  with  this  aspect  of  the  question  we 
must  again  take  timely  warning,  while  considering 
the  perception  of  natural  objects,  that  we  are  not 
drawn  into  that  complex  and  misleading  department 
of  the  theory  of  art  which  deals  with  Art  in  Nature — 
or  rather,  with  the  highly  artistic  contemplation  of 
nature  by  the  developed  and  cultured  individuals 
who  have  been  habitually  trained  in  the  contempla- 
tion and  the  appreciation  of  works  of  the  highest  art. 
It  is  not  in  this  aspect  that  I  now  propose  to  deal 
with  nature  from  the  point  of  view  of  sense-perception, 
but  in  a  much  more  rudimentary  phase  of  the  whole 
question.  I  wish  merely  to  show  how,  in  the  con- 
templation of  nature  and  its  objects,  the  human 
perceptive  senses  are  constantly,  continuously,  and 
forcibly  impressed  by  aesthetic  principles  of  the  most 
valid  and  generalised  form.  We  must  therefore 

53 


DISHARMONY   IN   NATURE  AND  LIFE      53 

become  thoroughly  clear  in  our  mind  that,  on  the 
whole,  when  we  consider  nature  and  art,  the  work  of 
nature  and  the  artifact,  the  products  of  nature  and 
the  products  of  man — nay,  even,  as  has  repeatedly 
been  shown,  the  actual  course  of  nature  and  what  we 
call  Progress — stand  as  antitheses  rather  than  as 
identical  or  harmonious  elements.  Stoic  philosophy 
and  its  tenets  are  shaken  to  their  very  foundations  by 
those  writers  and  critics  who  have  dwelt  upon  the 
cruelty,  the  constant  internecine  warfare  of  nature, 
as  also  in  life  the  Optimist  who  believes  in  the  preva- 
lence of  justice  and  the  immediate  predominance 
of  virtue  and  merit  and  continuous  progress  of 
humanity,  has  been  severely  shaken  by  the  arguments 
of  the  Pessimist,  who  points  to  the  constant  pre- 
dominance of  injustice  and  the  defection  of  virtue 
and  merit  in  this  world  of  ours,  and  the  retrogressions 
of  human  society  towards  savagery.  The  constant 
and  resistless  flow  of  nature  and  life  with  its  change, 
leading  to  dissolution  and  death,  and  the  struggle  for 
existence  which  is  discerned  in  every  department  of 
its  progression,  are  in  direct  opposition  to  the  har- 
monious completeness  and  reposefulness  of  art-design 
and  fulfilment  of  effort.  The  works  of  man's  art  and 
craft  thus  stand  in  direct  opposition,  from  this  point 
of  view  at  least,  to  the  objects  of  nature,  so  much  so 
that,  when  man  finds  complete  form  and  responsive- 
ness to  his  feelings  and  needs  in  these  objects  of 
nature,  he  uses  the  significant  phrase  "  freak  of 
nature,"  as  he  is  also  pleasantly  surprised  when  a 
coincidence  in  the  outer  world  not  directed  by  his 
own  design  or  will  brings,  by  what  he  might  call 
accident  or  "  luck,"  the  good  fortune  which  his 
design  would  have  led  him  to  create. 

I  have  perhaps  sufficiently  illustrated  what  I  mean 
to  insist  upon,  as  a  warning  against  hasty  generalisa- 
tion with  regard  to  the  sensory  experiences  of  man  in 


54     HARMONIOTROPISM    IN    HUMAN   LIFE 

his  perception  of  nature  and  its  works  as  being  pro- 
ductive in  these  senses  of  the  proportion  and  harmony 
which  constitute  the  aesthetic  principle.  But,  having 
thus  recalled  the  difference,  if  not  the  opposition, 
between  nature  and  art,  we  now  turn  to  those  percep- 
tible elements  in  nature  in  which,  by  its  constitution, 
the  aesthetic  instinct  in  man  and  the  aesthetic  element 
in  his  sense-perceptions  are,  if  not  exclusively  pro- 
duced, at  all  events  confirmed  throughout  his  life 
from  earliest  infancy  to  the  end. 

We  have  already  seen  how  in  the  lowest  organisms 
— even  in  sponges — the  rhythmical  and  periodic 
functioning  of  the  organism  confirms  the  harmonistic 
principle.  So  in  man  the  periodic  and  rhythmical 
functions  (the  heart-beat  and  other  periodic  bodily 
activities)  subconsciously  confirm  in  him  the  con- 
tinuous insistence  of  symmetrical  and  harmonious 
succession. 

But  in  his  more  complex  experiences  of  outer 
nature,  to  begin  with  the  important  subdivision  of 
time  in  his  conscious  existence,  the  harmonious 
rhythmical  and  numerical  subdivision  of  time  in  the 
conscious  existence  of  man  is  impressed  upon  him 
through  his  perceptive  senses  from  their  earliest 
awakening  to  the  end  of  his  life  continuously,  and  at 
regular  intervals — darkness  and  light,  sunrise  and 
sunset,  dawn  and  evening  twilight,  the  consciousness 
of  the  year  and  its  subdivisions  with  the  periodic 
changes  of  seasons  which,  at  an  early  period  he  may, 
more  or  less,  clearly  and  perfectly  identify  with  the 
sun  and  moon,  and  with  the  constellations  in  the 
sky,  from  the  general  and  harmonious  framework 
of  his  consciousness  in  time.  Again,  he  experiences 
cold  and  warmth  ;  cloudiness,  stillness,  and  wind- 
swept turmoil  and  storms  ;  in  racing  nebulae  changing 
their  shapes  at  every  moment  ;  the  world  of  sound, 
confused  and  escaping  the  grasp  of  his  perceptions 


HARMONISM   IN   TUNE  55 

through  the  very  confusion  in  which  no  single  tone 
predominates  ;  and,  on  the  other  hand,  the  familiar 
rhythmical  cadence  of  sounds  in  the  songs  of  birds 
or  the  bleating  of  animals,  or  the  calls  and  chants  of 
his  fellow-men — through  all  this  endless  complexity 
and  confusion  there  issues  out  and  impresses  his 
senses  with  the  regularity  and  symmetry  of  their 
form  or  their  relation  to  one  another,  or  their  fixed 
and  recurrent  relation  to  his  own  existence,  the 
principle  of  harmony  and  proportion  which  through 
the  elusive  and  disturbing  complexities  of  nature  and 
life  brings  pleasure  to  his  senses,  his  emotions  and 
thoughts.  And  in  the  movement  of  his  own  kind, 
and  of  the  animal  world  about  him  (to  which  I 
referred  above  in  relation  to  the  functioning  of  the 
progressive  organs  in  the  animal  world),  as  well  as 
in  the  growth  of  the  whole  vegetable  kingdom  about 
him,  the  trees  and  plants  in  their  wholeness  and  in 
every  part,  the  structure  of  the  land  and  of  the 
mineral  world  and  the  regularity,  symmetry,  pro- 
portion, and  inner  harmony  of  their  stratification  and 
structural  composition,  reflecting  the  number  and 
regularity  of  the  long  ages  of  gradual  growth  and 
organisation  (of  which  geological  evolution  he  may 
have  no  ken  whatever) — all  these  impress  upon  his 
senses  from  earliest  infancy  the  dominance  of 
symmetry,  of  proportion  and  form. 

And  when  he  examines  individual  objects  more 
closely,  he  notices — though  generally  subconsciously 
— in  every  tree  and  shrub  the  principle  of  growth  in 
the  structure  from  the  trunk  to  the  distribution  in 
varied  symmetry  of  the  branches  and  twigs,  and  of 
the  leaves  upon  them  ;  and  in  these  leaves  and  buds 
and  flowers,  the  most  marvellously  varied  though 
perfectly  symmetrical  and  harmonious  configuration 
of  their  form.  Furthermore,  the  movement  of 
masses  of  plants,  swayed  by  the  wind,  the  rippling 


56     HARMONIOTROPISM    IN    HUMAN    LIFE 

of  the  stream,  the  rush  of  waves,  and  the  great  surging 
of  the  sea — nay,  if  he  but  examine  a  flower  or  the 
smallest  herb  and  leaf  or  snowflake  on  his  hand  he 
would  see  in  it  all  the  variegated  forms  in  which  his 
eye  delights,  as  well  as  in  the  innumerable  shells 
which  he  finds  on  the  seashore — until  at  last  he  chooses 
the  most  perfectly  rounded  pebble  and  the  most  har- 
moniously variegated  shell,  and  delights  in  the  touch 
and  the  sight  of  them  and  even  at  last  turns  them, 
not  only  to  his  use,  but  as  ornaments  for  his  own 
body  or  for  his  surroundings.  Surely  it  is  enough 
merely  to  suggest  a  few  of  these  items  in  which  the 
aesthetic  principle  of  harmony,  in  the  process  as  well 
as  in  the  products,  in  the  change  and  movement  as 
well  as  in  the  static  repose  of  nature  as  man  learns  to 
see  it  as  a  whole  and  in  each  of  its  innumerable  parts, 
is  constantly  and  continuously  impressed  upon  his 
senses.  Now  it  is  these  elements  which  make  for 
ease  and  repose  within  the  difficulty  of  apprehension 
and  the  restlessness  of  changes  which  he  cannot 
control  ;  thus  modifying  his  senses  and  their  inner 
needs  until  he  indissolubly  associates  these  aesthetic 
elements  with  perceptive  pleasure. 

When  we  turn  from  outer  nature  to  man  himself  as 
an  object  of  contemplation  of  form,  his  appearance, 
his  body  and  face,  we  must,  above  all,  remember  that 
among  all  objects  which  man  observes  most  fre- 
quently and  continuously  and  with  greatest  interest, 
human  beings  are  prominent.  Moreover,  these  are 
impressed  upon  him  from  the  first  awakening  of  his 
senses  to  the  end  of  his  life.  We  can  therefore,  for 
instance,  understand  why  the  ancients — among  them 
Vitruvius — sought  to  trace  the  origin  of  architectural 
forms  back  to  human  forms  in  their  general  propor- 
tion, and  even  with  regard  to  some  definite  details. 
Though  these  analogies  were  frequently  fanciful,  it 
remains  eminently  true  that  the  general  sense  of 


HARMONY   IN   OBJECTS   OF   NATURE       57 

proportion  and  feeling  for  form  as  applied  to  all 
things,  if  they  do  not  originate  in  the  proportions  of 
the  human  figure,  are  greatly  influenced  by  the 
habitual  standards  established  by  this  continuous 
observation.  No  doubt  the  proportions  in  the 
outwardly  visible  form  of  the  human  figure  may 
ultimately  be  expressive  of  the  perfect  anatomical 
and  physiological  adjustment  of  the  organs  of  the 
body  ;  but  in  their  specious  manifestation  the 
standards  of  proportion,  modified  by  the  general  life- 
standards  of  the  peoples  in  various  localities  and 
periods  of  history,  are  fully  established  in  themselves 
and  in  relations  of  proportions  which  respond  to  the 
aesthetic  sense  of  harmony.  Not  only  are  there  thus 
established  the  broad  distinctions  as  regards  the 
body  between  the  cripple  on  the  one  hand  and  the 
perfectly-shaped  man  on  the  other  ;  but  a  great 
variety  of  shadings  in  the  proportions  of  the  body  as 
a  whole  and  in  the  relationship  of  the  various  members 
of  the  body  to  one  another  and  to  the  whole,  are 
directly  fixed  in  the  appreciative  sense  of  the  various 
peoples.  So  much  is  this  the  case  that  this  scale  of 
proportion  as  applied  to  all  things,  animate  and 
inanimate,  becomes  subconsciously  a  norm  of  an 
appreciation  of  form.  I  would,  for  instance,  even 
maintain  that  the  lines  expressed  by  what  aestheticians 
have  long  since  called  the  "  golden  section  "  (corre- 
sponding, roughly  speaking,  to  the  ordinary  cross) 
arise  out  of  the  fact  that,  in  facing  and  regarding  the 
human  beings  whom  we  meet  or  with  whom  we 
converse,  the  face  and  head  being  the  most  important 
part  of  our  observation,  the  relation  of  the  head  to  the 
rest  of  the  body,  joined  by  the  neck,  has  thus  estab- 
lished the  main  subdivision  between  the  upright  and 
the  horizontal,  not,  as  might  naturally  be  supposed, 
by  a  horizontal  line  of  equal  dimensions  running 
through  the  centre  of  the  perpendicular  line,  but 


58     HARMONIOTROPISM   IN   HUMAN   LIFE 

the  horizontal  line  from  shoulder  to  shoulder,  or  ex- 
tended from  hand  to  hand  stretched  out  horizontally, 
thus  accentuating  the  chief  demarcation  between 
the  head,  with  the  neck,  and  the  rest  of  the  body. 
No  doubt  the  cross,  familiarised  to  all  modern  peoples 
as  a  symbol  of  Christianity,  which  served  to  receive 
the  body  with  extended  arms,  has  thus  further 
familiarised  such  a  subdivision,  unconsciously  or 
subconsciously,  with  the  so-called  "  golden  section." 
Further,  we  must  remember  that  the  lines  and 
proportions  of  the  human  face  and  of  the  body  itself, 
presenting  the  most  perfect  harmony,  have  in  their 
aesthetic  appearance  had  a  most  important  influence 
on  the  sexual  instinct  and  sexual  selection  ;  and  that 
thus  this,  one  of  the  most  important  elements, 
emotions,  and  passions  in  the  life  of  man  (and  animals 
as  well),  is  directly  associated  with,  if  not  originated 
and  modified  by,  the  aesthetic  aspect  of  form.  But 
we  must  also  realise  that,  even  with  primitive  man 
and  savages,  and  especially  with  civilised  man,  the 
nude  body  is  covered  from  head  to  foot  by  different 
forms  of  raiment  and  embellishments,  and  these 
again  in  their  outer  appearance  manifest  in  the  highest 
degree  of  complexity  all  the  varieties  of  line,  colour, 
and  form,  and  of  purely  aesthetic  impressions. 

Further,  civilised  man — and  to  a  lesser,  though 
considerable,  degree  prehistoric  man  and  the  savage — 
is,  above  all,  a  domestic  animal.  Consider  the  all- 
important  fact  that,  though  he  may  spend  much  of 
his  time  in  nature  in  the  open  air,  his  real  life,  and  to 
him  the  most  important  part  of  his  life,  at  least  from 
the  point  of  view  of  pleasurable  impressions,  happi- 
ness, and  all  that  directly  or  remotely  comes  under  the 
category  of  aesthetic  enjoyment,  is  spent  in  his  house, 
or  in  similar  structures  in  town  or  village.  From 
earliest  infancy  upwards  the  form  of  the  dwellings  is 
thus  impressed  upon  his  senses  and  associated  with  his 


IN   DOMESTIC   SURROUNDINGS  59 

very  existence  on  every  side.  Consider,  furthermore, 
that  in  its  outer  appearance,  whether  artistically 
ornamented  in  detail  or  not,  the  house  manifests 
in  the  most  impressive  form  the  harmonious  pro- 
portions of  a  well-defined  unity  of  structure  in  the 
whole  and  in  all  its  parts  and  in  the  relation  between 
the  parts  and  the  whole,  from  foundation  to  roof. 
The  intersection  of  doors  and  windows,  with 
cornices  and  mouldings,  present  the  most  pro- 
nounced harmony  of  lines  joined  into  unity,  divided 
symmetrically — in  short,  the  simplest  and  most 
convincing  form  of  all  principles  of  art.  From  this 
point  of  view  there  is  much  justification  in  the  claim 
of  the  architect  that  his  art  is  the  mother  of  all  arts  ; 
but,  without  in  any  way  considering  it  as  a  work  of 
art,  the  mere  constant  repercussion  of  such  a  mani- 
festation of  absolute  symmetry  in  the  house  as  a  unit, 
in  its  relation  to  the  other  houses  and  to  the  street 
as  a  whole,  and  the  street  with  its  pavement  and 
middle  roadway  and  symmetrically  ivided  parts 
and  direction,  is  a  most  potent  vehicle  for  the  trans- 
mission of  this  sense  of  proportion  in  every  moment 
of  the  visual  life  of  civilised  man.  And  when  we 
come  to  the  interior,  the  planning  and  arrangement 
of  the  rooms  and  hallways  and  stairs,  with  steps  and 
banisters,  to  the  rooms  themselves,  in  which  most  of 
the  lives  of  most  people  are  spent  from  infancy 
upwards,  whether  in  work,  play,  or  repose,  consider 
the  structure  of  the  rooms  with  the  low  or  high  wains- 
coting, with  the  doors  and  their  setting,  as  well  as 
the  window  frames  and  the  windows,  with  the  cornice 
leading  over  to! the  ceiling,  simple  or  ornate  in  moulding 
or  decoration,  with  the  position  of  the  fireplace  in  its 
relation  to  doors  and  windows,  until  we  come  to  the 
furniture  and  its  position  in  the  room,  and  to  the 
articles  of  furniture  themselves,  displaying  in  chairs, 
couches,  tables,  in  each  as  a  whole  and  in  every  part 


60     HARMONIOTROPISM   IN   HUMAN   LIFE 

of  their  structure,  plain  or  decorated,  the  most 
complex  and  most  pronounced  symmetry  and 
harmony  of  proportion  ;  and  when  finally  we  con- 
sider that  the  eye  and  the  sense  of  touch  and  the 
whole  perceptive  consciousness  of  every  man  and 
woman  is  thus  continuously  living  within  surroundings 
which,  above  all,  impress  in  their  totality  and  in  their 
every  detail  proportion  of  line,  shape,  and  colour  in 
the  most  pronounced  and  continuously  impressive 
form,  we  must  realise  that  the  lives  of  civilised  men 
and  women  are  set  in  a  world  of  clearly  and  con- 
vincingly expressed  harmony,  symmetry,  and  pro- 
portion. 

Yet,  furthermore,  every  article  of  dress  and  of  use, 
apart  from  those  which  are  meant  by  their  artistic 
form  directly  to  satisfy  the  aesthetic  instinct,  clearly 
and  wholly  show  in  their  structure  and  the  finish  of 
elaboration  (as  did  the  stone  implements  of  pre- 
historic man)  the  feeling  for  form,  appealing  to  touch 
or  sight.  I  have  more  than  once  insisted  upon  the 
fact  that  the  greater  proportion  of  our  industries  in 
crafts  and  manufacture,  in  the  making  of  them  and 
in  their  appeal  to  the  purchaser,  are  intended  to 
stimulate  and  to  satisfy  the  feeling  for  form.  Even 
in  the  transportation  and  packing  of  them,  whether 
in  a  paper  parcel,  box,  or  case,  the  symmetry  of  form 
is  the  most  manifest  feature.  It  is  no  exaggeration 
to  say  that  there  is  hardly  a  moment  that  passes  in 
the  existence  of  civilised  man  in  which  some  of  his 
senses  are  not  impressed  by  these  purely  aesthetic 
stimulations  and  elements.  And  it  is  therefore  not 
to  be  wondered  at  that  in  the  phraseology,  not  only 
of  the  cultured  and  educated  classes  or  individuals, 
but  in  that  of  the  simplest  people,  far  removed  from 
what  has  been  called  the  "  Hellenic  spirit,"  and 
quite  unconscious  of  "  art  for  its  own  sake  "  or 
aesthetics  in  any  form,  the  terminology  used  to  express 


AESTHETIC  HABITUATION  61 

their  approval  or  disapproval  of  the  constant  experi- 
ences in  their  daily  life  as  well  as  of  the  people  and 
objects  about  them,  and  even  of  their  work  and 
occupation,  is  essentially  of  an  aesthetic  nature. 
With  the  least  cultured  people,  things  and  work  are 
either  nice  or  nasty,  fine  or  mean,  splendid  or  poor, 
beautiful,  ugly,  or  beastly,  or  they  may  use  still  more 
emphatic  adjectives  of  approval  or  disapproval 
borrowed  from  the  outer  appearance  of  things. 

If  we  really  dwell  upon,  and  fully  appreciate,  these 
simple  influences  of  daily  life  upon  civilised  man, 
we  shall  realise  the  dominant  part  which  the  aesthetic 
factor  plays  in  his  existence. 


CHAPTER  VI 

THE    ACTIVE    INFLUENCE    OF    THE    AESTHETIC    OR    HAR- 
MONISTIC    PRINCIPLE 

ALL  that  has  hitherto  been  said  concerning  the 
aesthetic  element  as  dominating  the  perceptive  facul- 
ties applies  more  to  the  passive  and  receptive  per- 
ceptions themselves.  We  now  come  to  the  element  of 
sesthetic  satisfaction  or  pleasure  in  the  active  aspect 
of  the  organs  of  sense-perception,  namely,  in  their 
function  as  such,  in  the  liberation  of  their  functional 
energy,  as  distinguished  from  their  reception  of  outer 
stimuli.  Here  again  we  must  establish  two  main 
subdivisions  :  (i)  The  delight  in  the  function  itself 
for  its  own  sake  purely  and  simply,  whether  physical 
or  mental ;  (2)  the  direction  or  modification  of  the 
sesthetic  element,  by  the  search  for  formal  harmony, 
beauty,  and  even  use.  In  this  second  division  we 
approach  more  closely  and  directly  the  development 
of  art  and  the  theory  of  that  department  of  mental 
activity. 

But,  before  entering  upon  this  inquiry  into  the 
active  side  of  our  perceptive  senses  and  faculties,  we 
must  in  a  few  words  consider  the  sexual  instincts  ; 
but  only  in  their  bearing  upon  the  harmoniotropic 
and  aesthetic  instincts.  The  supreme  importance  of 
the  sexual  instinct  in  life,  upon  which  the  preservation 
and  continuance  of  the  species  depends,  can  hardly 
be  overestimated.  Whether  the  sexual  impulses  are 
based  merely  upon  the  normal  internal  functioning 
of  the  physiological  elements  concerned  in  the  normal 

62 


LOVE  63 

life  of  all  organisms  and  in  man,  we  need  not  consider 
here.  That  they  are  most  active  and  powerful  must 
be  admitted.  But  we  are  concerned  with  the  excita- 
tion of  these  functions  through  outer  and  inner  stimuli 
which  produce  desire,  passion,  and  that  emotional 
state  in  man  termed  love.  Here  again  arises  the 
question  whether  the  conditions  producing  this 
stimulation  are  due  to  the  racial  "  affinities  "  (or 
harmonies),  or  affinities  among  the  same  species  or 
between  definite  individuals  among  these,  sub- 
consciously producing  "  attraction  "  (as  per  contra 
antagonisms  are  similarly  produced)  ;  or  whether 
they  are,  in  a  higher  degree  of  consciousness,  awakened 
and  intensified  by  the  perception  of  quality  in  indi- 
viduals which  produces  what  in  one  simple  word  we  call 
"  admiration."  Our  subdivision,  be  it  understood, 
does  not  exclude  the  combination  and  fusion  of  both 
these  elements,  the  subconscious  and  the  conscious. 

In  the  first  source  of  stimulation  it  is  evident  that  in 
the  "  affinity  "  or  harmony  of  the  outer  object,  itself 
a  direct  and  complete  manifestation  of  the  har- 
monistic  principle,  and  its  harmonious  response  to 
the  mentality  as  well  as  to  the  physical  nature  of  the 
receptive  being  (whether  plant,  animal,  or  man),  the 
harmonistic  and  aesthetic  element  is  emphatically 
dominant.  Darwin  even  uses  the  highly  complex 
term  "  beauty  "  as  being  the  dominant  element  in 
sexual  affinity  and  selection,  on  which  latter  the 
evolution  of  organisms  and  man  greatly  depends. 

In  the  second  origin  of  erotic  tendencies,  to  which 
the  term  "  love  "  may  more  fittingly  be  applied,  sexual 
affinity  and  selection  are  no  doubt  also  active,  as  they 
are  in  the  lower  organisms.  But  sexual  affinity  is 
turned  into  "  elective  affinity."  Furthermore,  the 
object  which  thus  incites  and  develops  sexual  emotion 
produces,  through  the  perceiving  senses,  what  again 
in  one  simple  term  we  call  "  admiration."  Those 


64    INFLUENCE   OF  ESTHETIC   PRINCIPLE 

qualities  which  produce  "  admiration  "  may  in  man 
be  of  a  physical  or  of  a  mental  and  spiritual  nature. 
They  may  be  perceived  and  realised  with  full  con- 
sciousness or  in  various  degrees  of  subconsciousness, 
and  may  be  the  outcome  of  direct  or  reminiscent 
stimulation  of  those  elements  which  produce  the 
emotion  of  "  admiration."  They  may  be  aroused  by 
one  single  quality  or  group  of  qualities  or  by  the 
personality  or  object  as  a  whole.  Finally,  the 
individual  thus  affected  may,  as  far  as  conscious  reali- 
sation is  concerned,  be  in  error  in  assigning  to  the  one 
or  other  quality  the  cause  of  his  admiration. 

Admiration  as  an  emotional  state  thus  responds 
to  qualities  and  objects  not  necessary  to  the  physical 
subsistence  of  human  beings — purely  physical — in 
nature,  but  may  be  mental  and  spiritual  ;  and  thus 
the  love  or  Eros  of  Plato  applies  to  all  love  of  the 
perfect,  the  ideal,  including  even  the  cognitive  Eros 
which  impels  man  to  the  love  of  Wisdom  or  Philo- 
sophy. It  thus  produces  the  mental  or  spiritual 
desire  and  passion  which  underlie  all  mental  and 
moral  activities. 

But  what  is  essential  to  the  meaning  of  love  as  the 
expression  of  the  sexual  instinct  and  passion  is  that 
"  admiration  "  is  an  active  emotional  state  producing 
desire  which  impels  man  to  act  and  to  create.  It  is 
thus  the  foundation  of  all  willed  activity,  all  pro- 
ductivity and  creativeness  in  man — it  forms  the  out- 
going, "  poietic  "  passion  which,  beyond  mere  physical 
subsistence  in  the  lower  organisms,  leads  man  to  will 
and  to  act,  to  produce  and  to  create,  and  thus  enters 
into  every  activity  and  every  phase  of  life  and  mind 
in  the  existence  of  man. 

What,  however,  we  are  concerned  with  is  that, 
whether  through  racial  and  subconscious  "  affinity  " 
and  sexual  selection,  or  through  admiration,  the 
aesthetic  instinct  and  faculty  are  strengthened  in 


JOIE  DE   VIVRE  65 

the  mental  life  of  man,  and,  through  them,  permeate 
his  every  activity. 

There   is   attached   to,  or  implied   in,    all   normal 
functioning  of  the  human  organs  an  aesthetic  element, 
depending,  not  only  upon  the  function  of  individual 
organs  as  such,  but  also  upon  the  harmonious  relation 
of  all  the  several  organs  of  the  human  body,  including 
those  directly  concerned   in  mental  activity.     This 
relationship  of  the  part  to  the  whole  is  directly  con- 
cerned with  normality  and  health,  the  basis  of  all  the 
physiological  life  of  the  individual  organic  being,  both 
from  the  anatomical  and  physiological  point  of  view. 
As  the  subject  of  theoretical  study  this  leads  us  to 
anatomy  and  physiology,  just  as  the  disturbance  of 
such  organic  harmony  in  the  living  individual  being 
constitutes  the  study  of  pathology.     But  when  we 
regard  this  group  of  phenomena,  not  from  the  outside 
as  objects  of  such  study,  but  within  the  individual 
reflecting  the  sensory  and  emotional  states  correspond- 
ing to  the  normal  and  healthy  function,  approaching 
from   the   subconscious   to    the    conscious    dwelling 
upon  such  complete  and  harmonious  relationship  of 
structure  and  vitality,  we  have  a  direct  response  in 
human  perception,  emotion,  and  consciousness  to  the 
aesthetic  principle  of  harmony.     In  a  general  sense 
the  sum  of  such  emotion  arising  out  of  the  normal  and 
healthy    functioning,    when    sufficiently    strong    to 
manifest  itself  in  a  general  perception,  emotion,  or  in 
consciousness,  leads  to  a  feeling  of  vigorous  vitality, 
and  may  be  summarised   under  the  French  phrase 
la  joie  de  vivre ;  just  as  per  contra  a  disturbance  in 
the  functioning  of  the  human  organs  and  an  inhar- 
monious relationship  in  their  organic  inter-activity 
produce   disease,  discomfort,  pain,  or   at  least  what 
neuro-pathologists   have   called    "  organ-sensations," 
in  which  latter  condition  the  functioning  of  those 
single  organs — essential  to  normal  self-preservation, 
6 


66    INFLUENCE   OF   AESTHETIC   PRINCIPLE 

each  in  complete  subordination  to  the  organic  unity 
of  functions — becomes  obtrusively  aggressive  and  in 
so  far  disturbs  the  mental  and  emotional  equilibrium. 
On  the  other  hand,  not  by  the  involuntary  obtrusion 
of  such  organ-sensations,  but  when  the  designed  desire 
of  activity  or  a  completely  directed  conscious  activity 
of  will  is  centred  upon  some  individual  function,  the 
perfect  functioning  of  individual  organs  or  groups  of 
organs,  apart  from  their  normal  subordination  to 
the  central  object  of  physiological  self-preservation, 
may  also  become  directly  pleasurable  in  the  con- 
scious or  subconscious  realisation  of  the  harmony  in 
the  functioning  of  such  organs  themselves.  Thus 
the  complete,  accurate  or  comprehensive  perceptive 
or  receptive  activities  of  the  eye  and  the  ear  and 
of  touch  in  perceiving  form  and  colour  and  sound 
may  in  themselves  as  functions,  when  realised  to  be 
working  harmoniously  and  perfectly,  be  a  source  of 
such  aesthetic  pleasure.  The  same  applies  to  our 
muscular  activity  and  the  realisation  of  its  stored  up 
energy  and  vitality,  as  we  see  by  the  delight  of  the 
infant  in  its  own  vitality  in  movement  and  in 
exercise,  by  the  jumping  and  dancing  of  children, 
their  shouting  and  their  singing,  and  by  the  pleasure 
in  exercise  and  sport  of  adults. 

It  may  not  be  inadvisable  here  to  cast  by  anticipa- 
tion a  suggestive  glimpse  into  the  later  region  of  fully 
developed  art  and  the  aesthetic  principles  which 
underlie  and  permeate  it.  Now,  it  is  out  of  this 
delight  in  the  spontaneous  liberation  of  vital  energy 
(muscular,  organic,  and  mental)  as  well  as  in  the  spon- 
taneous and  perfect  functioning  of  our  muscles  and 
organs,  that,  I  on  the  physical  side,  all  that  may 
be  summarised  under  the  word  play  and,  on  the 
mental  side,  all  that  approaches  directly  to  art,  are 
developed  in  the  human  species.  The  pleasure  in 
what  we  call  exercise  pure  and  simple,  walking, 


PLAY   AND  ART  67 

running,  jumping,  shouting,  leads  to  our  organised 
games,  and  the  whole  development  of  our  athletic 
institutions.  On  the  mental  side  the  same  liberation 
of  mental  energy  leads  to  art  in  all  its  forms.  Between 
the  two,  where  the  physical  and  mental  join  and 
intermingle,  we  come  to  symmetrical  and  rhythmical 
or  consciously  harmonious  movement  in  dance,  or 
we  convert  the  shouting  into  singing,  and  find  delight 
in  the  regularity  of  beat  or  metre,  in  the  dancers,  the 
regular  clapping  of  hands,  or  striking  of  the  "  tom- 
tom," or  in  the  music  and  even  the  verses  of  the 
most  primitive  people,  until  out  of  these  simple  forms 
of  pleasure  in  harmonious  muscular  activity  and 
sense-perception,  there  spring  all  the  creative  arts 
and  crafts  of  time  and  space  in  decorative  arts,  in 
architecture,  sculpture,  painting,  as  well  as  in  music 
and  poetry.  I  must  still  further  point  out  and  antici- 
pate what  belongs  to  later  inquiry,  the  fact  that  such 
aesthetic  activity  cannot  occur  when  function  and 
exertion  are  directed  to  some  definite  outer  production 
responding  to  duty  or  utility,  if  this  outer  object 
absorbs  the  whole  of  attention  and  motive  force  and 
leaves  no  opportunity  for  pleasure  in  the  function 
itself.  This  marks  the  difference  between  work  and 
play,  as  it  also  does  in  later  stages  between  the  prag- 
matic or  useful,  the  ethical  or  good,  or  the  scientific 
or  true,  attitude  of  the  mind.  Play  and  art  thus 
do  not  belong  to  the  activities  immediately  necessary 
for  physical  self-preservation,  but  constitute  what 
might  be  called,  with  some  suggestive  vagueness  of 
meaning,  luxury,  in  contradistinction  to  necessity. 
Though  it  is  therefore  only  in  the  more  restful  moments 
of  recreation  or  in  the  comparatively  more  advanced 
organisation  of  social  life  that  such  "  luxury  "  of 
existence  becomes  a  conscious  aim  of  human  activity, 
and  then  produces  "  culture,"  we  have  not  yet  found, 
in  even  the  most  primitive  phases  of  existence  in 


68    INFLUENCE   OF  AESTHETIC   PRINCIPLE 

historic  and  prehistoric  times,  any  period  when  such 
activities  did  not  form  a  part  of  the  life  and  were  not 
of  paramount  importance  to  primitive  human  beings. 
On  the  other  hand,  the  more  highly  civilised  societies 
become,  the  more  fully  are  these  elements  of  existence 
recognised,  organised,  and  developed.  In  this  respect 
it  is  a  most  suggestive  fact  in  history  that  the  ancient 
Greeks,  to  whom  civilised  man  down  to  the  present 
day  owes  what  is  most  essential  to  our  civilisation  in 
all  departments,  were  also  the  first  to  have  developed, 
on  the  one  side,  athletic  games  as  an  essential  institu- 
tion of  their  communal  and  national  society,  and  on 
the  other  art — and,  moreover,  pure  art,  that  is,  art 
the  physical  expression  of  which,  e.g.  picture,  statue, 
drama,  poem,  music,  etc.,  served  no  other  purpose 
than  the  immediate  and  complete  satisfaction  of  the 
aesthetic  instinct  as  such. 

For  many  years  I  have  been  engaged  in  lecturing 
for  the  Gilchrist  Educational  Trust 1  to  the  working 

1  The  most  illustrious  as  well  as  most  successful  lecturers,  among 
many  others,  were  Huxley,  Sir  Robert  Ball,  and  Dr.  Dallinger.  In  every 
lecture  we  addressed  hundreds  and  even  thousands  of  skilled  and  un- 
skilled labourers  in  every  part  of  the  country,  from  the  North  of  Scotland 
to  Land's  End  and  from  the  West  of  Ireland  to  the  east  coast  of  England. 
They  were  chiefly  in  the  industrial  centres,  but  also  extended  to  agri- 
cultural and  fishing  districts.  They  generally  lasted  for  an  hour  and 
a  quarter,  during  which  these  large  and  mixed  audiences  manifested 
unbroken  attention,  sustained  interest  sometimes  rising  to  enthusiasm. 
The  lecture  from  which  a  passage  is  here  given  began  with  the  state- 
ment that,  in  singling  out  among  qualities  which  tended  to  make  life 
efficient  and  happy,  perhaps  the  most  prominent  was  the  sense  of  pro- 
portion. It  was  this  sense  which  enabled  us  justly  to  balance  the  claims 
of  others  and  our  own,  the  importance  of  individual  disappointments 
and  sorrows  in  their  relation  to  our  life  as  a  whole,  and  it  even  enabled 
us  to  be  just  to  ourselves  in  that  we  could  justly  harmonise  our  duties 
with  our  capabilities.  The  most  important  aspect  of  our  life  in  which 
it  produced  beneficent  peace  and  contentment  was  the  division  and 
harmony  between  our  life  of  work  and  of  play.  It  was  with  the  latter 
division  with  which  the  lecture  was  chiefly  concerned.  The  second 
half  of  the  lecture  was  devoted  to  Greek  Art  with  illustrations.  Abso- 
lute evidence  was  produced  that  these  audiences  learnt  fully  to  appre- 
ciate, e.g.,  the  beauties  of  the  Parthenon  pediments. 


THE   POSTMAN  69 

population  of  the  United  Kingdom,  one  of  which  was 
on  "  Labour  and  Art  in  English  Life,  illustrated  by 
Greek  Art,"  which  I  am  justified  in  saying  was 
eminently  successful  in  bringing  home  to  the  labouring 
population  the  position  which  art  has  held,  and  ought 
to  hold,  in  the  life  of  a  civilised  community.  It  may 
be  useful  to  quote  a  passage  here  illustrative  of  the 
preceding  contention.  Of  course,  in  bringing  home 
to  them  in  some  form  the  distinctive  character  of 
artistic  perception,  one  was  bound  to  avoid,  as  far  as 
possible,  abstract  generalities,  and  to  employ  definite 
examples.  Beginning  with  the  production  or  the 
purchase  of  a  walking-stick,  or  of  a  pipe,  one 
endeavoured  to  convince  them  how  potent  was  the 
artistic  instinct  in  their  choice  of  such  objects,  and 
how  this  choice  illustrated  the  essential  principles  of 
art  in  proportion  and  harmony.  But,  with  regard 
to  the  artistic  element  in  the  functioning  of  the 
human  organism  just  referred  to,  I  always  found 
two  special  examples  of  convincing  effectiveness  : 
the  first  was  a  detailed  account  of  the  duty  of  the 
postman  on  his  daily  round  ;  the  other  was  the  form 
and  colour  of  an  apple. 

'  The  postman  has  to  go  from  this  place  X  to  that 
village  Y,  which  is  six  miles  off.  Day  by  day,  in 
rain  or  sunshine,  whether  he  is  tired  or  fresh,  ill  or 
well,  he  has  to  trudge  his  daily  round  and  deliver 
his  letters.  Every  limb  and  muscle  of  his  body  is 
subordinated  to  this  supreme  task  of  making  his 
round,  and  his  eyes  and  his  attention  must  not 
wander  ;  they  must  be  fixed  on  the  letters  which 
are  in  his  charge,  so  that  he  may  deliver  each  one  to 
the  house  indicated  by  the  address  on  the  envelope. 
You  will  all  admit  that  this  is  work — hard  work. 
Now,  you  or  I,  who  happen  not  to  be  postmen,  but 
are  working  men,  each  one  of  us  in  our  several  ways, 
are  cooped  up  for  every  day  of  the  working  week 
in  our  workshop,  in  the  factory  or  the  mill,  down  in 


70    INFLUENCE   OF   ESTHETIC   PRINCIPLE 

the  pits,  or  in  our  shop,  in  our  office,  in  our  study — 
we  are  all  working  men,  at  least  I  hope  so.     Well, 
let  us  say  we  have  a  holiday,  or  a  half-holiday — a 
whole  holiday  would  be  better — and,  being  normal, 
healthy    human    beings,    possessing    the    two    great 
requisites    for     happiness     and    efficiency — a     good 
digestion  and  a  good  conscience — we  are  not  satisfied 
to  remain  indoors  and  mope,  and  we  do  not  wish  to 
work  at  what  is  our  exclusive  occupation  during  the 
week  ;    so  our  healthy  energy  drives  us  out  and  we 
take  the  same  walk  which  the  postman  took.     But, 
mark  the  difference  !     Every  step  we  take,  the  act 
of  planting  our  feet  firmly  and  pushing  back  our 
knees  vigorously,  of  contracting  and  extending  our 
every  muscle — these   acts   are  not  subordinated   to 
any  further  duty  or  task,  but  the  exertion  of  energy 
becomes  a  pleasure  in  itself.     The  expansion  of  our 
chest  as  we  breathe  in  the  fresh  pure  air  in  this 
beautiful  country  when  you  get  beyond  the  town  and 
the  smoke  of  the  factories,  the  very  act  of  breathing, 
becomes  a  source  of  pleasure.     We  need  not  trudge 
on  wearily  and  reluctantly,  as  the  postman  does — our 
very  effort  is  the  object  and  aim  of  our  moving  and 
is  in  itself  a  source  of  delight.     And  our  eyes  !     They 
are  not  riveted  upon  the  letters  and  the  address  of 
the  houses  which  we  may  pass  ;    but  we  allow  them 
free  scope  to  drink  in  all  the  beauty  of  the  country 
about  us.     The  road  itself,  winding  along  like  a  bright 
fawn-coloured   ribbon,   as   it   ascends   the   hills   and 
dips  into  the  valleys  ;    the  hedgerows  on  either  side 
with  the  lovely  mass  of  plants   and   shrubs,   each 
smallest  particle  of  which  presents  a  world  of  beautiful 
lines  and  hues  and  colours  against  the  blue  sky  ;  and, 
further  afield,  the  gracefully  undulating  country,  rich 
in  its  green  turf,   more   beautiful  than   any  velvet 
carpet  that  man's  hand  can  weave  ;   even  the  colour 
of  the  ploughed  field,  from  dark  russet  and  brown, 
through  yellowish  buff  and  mauve,  changing  with 
every  season  and  always  beautiful  to  the  eye  ;    and 
where  the  dip  is  down  the  valley,  where  the  bubbling, 
babbling   stream    rushes    along    between    the    over- 
hanging trees  ;    and  up  again  to  your  beautiful  hills 


THE   APPLE  71 

whose  green  slopes  gradually  fade  away  into  a  misty 
blue — all  this  your  eyes  drink  in  with  a  gladness  that 
fills  your  soul.  And,  when  the  sunset  comes — such 
as  we  had  this  evening — you  see  beyond  and  between 
each  hill  the  whole  sky  streaked  and  flecked  with 
clouds,  deep  blackish-grey  on  either  side,  and  between 
them  the  setting  sun  sinks  down,  a  fiery  vermilion 
globe.  And,  as  it  gradually  disappears  between  the 
masses  of  grey  clouds  to  right  and  left,  the  sky 
between  becomes  a  bright  luminous  transparent 
endless  sea  of  molten  silver,  that  gradually  grows 
deeper,  turning  more  to  yellow,  until  it  becomes  again 
a  fiery  mass  of  molten  gold.  And  from  gold  it  grows 
ruddy,  at  first  a  delicate  pink  ;  then  a  richer  crimson 
in  the  centre,  and,  through  the  delicate  pink,  the 
clouds  that  are  touched  by  it  are  embroidered  with 
a  luminous  golden  band  between  the  mass  of  pink, 
bright  and  filled  with  light ;  they  fade  towards  green, 
to  a  delicate  light  sea-green  as  this  whole  mass  of 
light  and  colour  sends  its  last  rays,  sweeping  over 
the  darkening  green  fields  ;  and  you  stand  in  the 
midst  of  all  this  world  of  colour  and  form,  drunken 
with  the  sight  of  it,  and  your  heart  is  filled  with  the 
beauty  of  its  harmonious  life,  until  your  joy  becomes 
too  solemn  for  expression  and  fills  your  whole  nature 
with  a  glow  of  responsive  gratitude.  This  walk  is 
the  play-side  ;  the  postman's  walk  was  the  work- 
side. 

'  Let  me  give  you  one  more  instance  : 
"  An  apple  is,  to  most  of  us,  simply  an  article  of 
pleasant  food  and  nothing  more.  Now,  remember, 
only  one  person  can  possess  that  apple  and  eat  it  ; 
and  if  two  people  want  the  same  apple — ah,  that  is 
the  beginning  of  all  envy,  hatred,  and  malice  !  And 
if  two  nations  want  the  same  tract  of  land,  as  we  have 
seen  but  recently  in  the  south-east  of  Europe,  they 
spring  at  each  other's  throats,  and  the  fields  flow  in 
blood.  But  has  it  ever  occurred  to  you  that  there 
is  another  way  of  regarding  that  apple  ?  When  you 
go  home  this  evening,  do  me  the  favour  to  take 
an  apple,  and  put  it  on  your  hand  and  look  at  it. 
Don't  consider  it  as  an  article  of  food,  and  forget 


72    INFLUENCE   OF   ESTHETIC   PRINCIPLE 

the  fact  that  it  belongs  to  you.     Only  look  at  its 
form  and  colour.     Has  it  ever  occurred  to  you  what 
a   beautiful  object   an   apple   is  ?     Note   the   lovely 
rondeur    of   it,    the    beautiful    roundness.     Not    the 
roundness  of  a  circle  drawn  with  a  pair  of  compasses, 
hard  and  mechanical  in  its  absolute  regularity,  but 
a  lovely   variegated  rondeur  full  of  movement  and 
life  in  the  flow  of  lines  ;  slightly  flattened  at  the  top, 
where  it  dips  down  in  the  little  hollow  that  we  did 
not  like  as  children  because  we  could  not  eat  it  ; 
curves   intersecting  each  other  on   either  side — not 
one  apple  is  exactly  like  the  other,  and  each  contains 
a   world    of   beautiful   harmonious    form.     And    the 
colour  of  it  1     On  the  one  side  you  have  a  deep  cherry 
red,  most  intense  in  the  centre  of  it  and  gradually 
shading  off  more  delicately  into  tender  reddish  hues 
that  grow  more  and  more  pink  and  then  end  inter- 
fused with  a  tinge  of  yellow  that  leads  over  into  a 
greenish  hue  as  you  come  to  the  other  side  ;   and  the 
green,  quite  pale,  becomes  more  intense  and  deeper 
until  it  grows  into  a  rich  verdant  green  opposite  to 
the  deep  crimson  red  on  the  other  side  ;  the  small 
roughly  rounded  object  presenting  you  with  a  world 
of  colour  and  gradations  of  colour  in  itself,  harmonised 
throughout,  and  lines  and  mass  and  curves  and  colours 
uniting  into  one  harmony  and  beauty  of  form  and, 
through  your  eyes,  fills  your  own  soul  with  its  own 
harmony  and  beauty. 

"  Now,  mind  you — and  this  is  an  important  point- 
not  only  you  can  thus  enjoy  it.  Every  other  person 
who  looks  at  it  in  the  same  way  and  in  the  same 
spirit  can  derive  the  same  refining  and  elevating 
pleasure  out  of  it,  and  its  substance  is  not  diminished 
thereby.  It  does  not  become  the  apple  of  desire  and 
discord  ;  it  is  not  consumed  by  one  person  only 
with  the  enjoyment  of  the  eating  of  it.  The  desire 
to  possess  it  does  not  produce  antagonism  between 
people  who  crave  for  it,  hatred  and  malice  among 
them,  and  greed  that  fills  their  soul  with  wrath.  On 
the  contrary,  the  fact  of  enjoying  it,  the  fact  that 
there  are  kindred  souls  who  can  be  moved  by  the  same 
ennobling  spirit  of  artistic  delight,  draws  you  together. 


THE   SPIRIT  OF  ART  73 

That  is  the  spirit  of  art  ;   it  is  the  golden  chain  that 
knits  humanity  together,  instead  of  severing  them  ; 
that  purifies  and  elevates  the  soul  and  leads  it  on  to 
love  and  fellowship  of  mankind  and  of  all  the  works 
of  God.     The  more  people  enjoy  a  work  of  art,  the 
more  does  it  fulfil  its  sacred  destiny,  and  the  substance 
of  the  work  itself  is  not  diminished.     On  the  contrary, 
we  may  say  the  vitality  of  its  existence  is  thereby 
confirmed  and  increased.     A  great  drama  or  a  great 
poem  that  is  not  heard  by  a  large  number  of  people 
who  can  thrill  with  the  harmony  of  diction,  and  can 
be  moved  by  the  scenes  and  the  stirring  events  and 
feelings  which  they  convey,   is  dead  and  does  not 
exist  ;    but  the  more  people  who  are  thus  moved  by 
such  a  work,  the  greater  is  its  artistic  life  and  vitality. 
A  great  symphony  or  oratorio  or  any  work  of  music 
that  does  not  cause  the  heart-strings  of  the  listeners 
to  vibrate  in  harmony  with  its  own  beautiful  tones 
and    the    rhythmical    sequence    of    its    melody    and 
metric  harmony  is  dead  ;  but  the  more  it  thus  moves, 
refines,  and  elevates  the   greatest  number  of  people, 
the  more  does  it  live.     And  so  with  a  statue  that 
presents  the  most  beautiful  forms  in  nature  in  har- 
monious masses,  with  gracious  curves  which  repro- 
duce  the  great   types   and   ideals  which  have   been 
evolved  by  nature  in  its  struggles  towards  perfection 
for  countless  ages  ;   so  also  with  a  great  picture  that 
transfers    the    beautiful    forms    of    nature    and    the 
semblance  of  man  and  his  life  on  the  flat  canvas  ; 
and  by  means  of  drawing  and  composition  of  lines 
and   colours   harmonised,   and   light  and  shade  and 
perspective,  selects  from  the  world  without  what  is 
most  beautiful  and  gives  it  back  to  the  eye  of  man, 
capable  of  receiving  the  noblest  gift  of  beauty  which 
this   life  can   present  to  us.     So  with  art  in  all  its 
forms.     And    all    these    great    works    treasured    up 
through  past  centuries,  from  every  race  and  from 
every  clime,  produced  by  the  great  geniuses  of  the 
world  with  the  work  of  their  hands  and  the  sweat  of 
their  brows — nay,   the  blood  of  their  hearts — they 
are  all  there  ready  for  us.     And  how  many  of  you 
enjoy  their  fruit,  and  give  back  to  them  the  very  soul 


74    INFLUENCE  OF  AESTHETIC   PRINCIPLE 

of  their  vitality  for  which  they  were  created  and  for 
which  they  exist  for  mankind  ? 

"  I  am  not  overstating  my  case  when  I  say  to  you 
that  every  man  and  woman  of  ordinary  intelligence, 
possessed  of  normal  senses  (for  if  they  are  born  colour- 
blind or  note-deaf  they  cannot  appreciate  pictures  or 
music),  can  arrive  at  the  appreciation  of  the  highest 
works  of  art — provided  you  are  given  the  chance  and, 
above  all,  give  yourselves  a  chance  of  cultivating  and 
training  your  faculties.  But  how  often  have  I  heard 
you  say  :  '  These  things  are  not  for  us  ;  they  are  for 
our  betters/  That  is  not  true.  Such  servility  of 
mind,  unworthy  of  free  men,  arises  out  of  mental 
sloth  and  intellectual  cowardice.  The  great  art 
treasures  in  our  country  belong  to  the  nation — they 
belong  to  you  ;  and  what  good  are  they  to  you,  what 
use  do  you  make  of  them  ? 

"  If  you  were  told  that  beneath  the  soil  on  which 
I  am  now  standing  there  were  treasures  of  precious 
metals  or  valuable  chemicals,  you  would  think  that 
it  was  '  flying  in  the  face  of  Providence  '  that  such 
values  remained  unused,  that  such  huge  capital 
brought  no  interest.  And  here,  in  the  great  works 
of  art,  the  most  valuable  treasure,  the  noblest  spiritual 
capital  of  the  nation,  remains  unused,  yields  no 
interest  as  far  as  you  are  concerned — in  fact,  is  by 
your  indolence  and  subserviency  deprived  of  its  life, 
lies  dead  !  For,  as  I  have  said,  a  work  of  art  which 
is  not  perceived  is  dead,  and  can  only  be  resuscitated 
to  life  by  the  responsive  human  soul,  by  aesthetic 
appreciativeness. ' ' 

Thus  art  is  the  final  and  most  direct  expression  of 
the  active  influence  of  the  harmonistic  and  aesthetic 
principle  dominating  the  senses  and  the  whole  mind 
of  man. 


CHAPTER  VII 

THE     DOMINANCE     OF     THE     AESTHETIC     ATTITUDE     OF 
MIND    IN   CULTURED    LIFE 

THE  result  of  our  inquiry  into  the  active  functioning 
of  the  human  mind,  as  affected  by  the  aesthetic  or 
harmonistic  principle,  has  shown  us  how  it  leads  to 
"  play  "  and,  finally,  to  the  production  of  art.  These 
results  will  be  further  investigated  from  a  more  special 
point  of  view  in  the  chapter  on  ^Esthetics  in  the 
Second  Part. 

But  we  must  now  return  to  consider  the  influence 
and  dominance  of  the  aesthetic  attitude  of  mind  in 
civilised,  and  even  cultured,  life  as  produced  by  our 
mental  need  for  symmetry,  proportion,  order,  law  in 
the  highly  organised  life  of  what  we  may  call  the 
historical  period  of  human  society.  In  the  various 
aspects  of  this  life  we  are  concerned  with  the  life  of 
reason,  of  use,  and  economy,  of  social  and  ethical 
order,  of  political  organisation,  and,  finally,  of  religious 
ideals,  as  well  as  with  art  ;  and  these  subdivisions  of 
the  main  question,  as  I  have  already  said,  will  be 
dealt  with  specially  in  the  chapters  on  Epistemology, 
Esthetics,  Pragmatics,  Ethics,  Politics,  and  Religion 
in  the  Second  Part.  At  the  same  time,  however, 
while  we  are  now  endeavouring  to  realise  the  influence 
and  dominance  of  the  aesthetic  and  harmonistic 
attitude  of  mind  within  the  wholeness  of  life,  we  must 
point  to  those  facts  in  the  actual  ordinary  life  of 
civilised  man  which  prove  this  dominant  influence  in 
our  conscious  existence. 

75 


76      DOMINANCE   OF  ESTHETIC  ATTITUDE 

In  the  first  instance,  it  is  all-important  for  us  to 
consider  that  civilised  man — and  this  is  true  even  of 
the  beginnings  of  civilisation  when  purely  animal 
instincts  and  passions  predominated  over  the  organ- 
ised life  of  the  family  and  of  society — undergoes  from 
birth  upwards,  far  into  adult  life,  a  process  of  training 
or  education  to  prepare  and  fit  him  as  a  member  of 
ordered  civilised  existence.  Now,  it  is  through  this 
training  and  education  in  the  home  and  in  the  school 
that  system,  order,  law,  harmonious  relationship  of 
man  to  man  and  to  the  material  and  moral  world  in 
which  he  lives,  are  designedly  and  systematically 
impressed  upon  him  from  infancy  upwards,  until, 
habitually  and  subconsciously,  as  well  as  consciously 
and  in  willed  action,  his  whole  mentality  is  based  upon 
this  summary  ideal  of  social  harmony.  This  applies 
to  his  mental  faculties,  to  the  direction  of  his  will,  to 
the  control  of  all  elements  that  make  up  intelligence 
and  to  his  own  individual  deportment  as  an  individual. 
From  infancy  upwards  he  is  insistently  impressed  with 
the  general  framework  of  his  existence  within  order 
and  law,  in  the  division  of  time  for  his  life  and  his 
occupation,  according  to  firmly  established  principles  ; 
in  the  regulation  of  time  ;  in  the  broad  division  of 
occupations  between  work  and  play,  between  duty  and 
recreation  ;  in  the  indulgence  and  realisation  of  his 
own  needs  and  desires,  as  well  as  of  those  of  others  ; 
in  his  deportment,  habits,  and  manners  in  order  to 
contribute  to  the  peaceful  and  pleasant  flow  of  human 
intercourse  and  the  avoidance  of  conflicts  and  dis- 
turbances ;  and,  finally,  in  the  direct  modification  of 
his  own  personality  so  that  it  should  be  aesthetically 
attractive  and  not  repulsive — the  care  and  cleanliness 
of  his  person  beyond  mere  hygienic  needs  (though 
these  also  are  ultimately  reducible  to  harmonistic 
principles),  including  to  the  care  and  embellishment  of 
his  dress.  All  these  factors  constantly  and  continuously 


ORDER,    MANNERS,   DRESS  77 

impress  upon  him  the  ordered  and  harmonious  life, 
the  foundation  of  an  aesthetic  principle  of  guidance 
directing  the  existence  of  each  individual  towards  a 
harmonious  whole  of  civilised  society.  When  we 
come  to  his  direct  ethical  and  intellectual  training 
we  again  have  a  completely  organised  and  ordered 
system  harmonious  in  itself,  as  well  as  in  the  propor- 
tion which  it  bears  to  the  wholeness  of  civilised  life, 
as  developed  in  the  teaching  of  school  and  in  the 
home.  The  life  of  reason  and  the  life  of  justice  and 
goodness  are  thus  impressed  upon  him  by  the  estab- 
lished rules  of  order  and  proportion  and  harmony  ; 
while  in  the  elementary  and  advanced  teaching  of 
this  life  of  reason,  thought,  and  knowledge,  as  we  shall 
more  fully  realise  as  we  proceed,  he  is  subconsciously, 
if  not  consciously,  impressed  and  habituated  by  means 
of  the  harmonious  structure  and  method  of  the 
various  departments  of  knowledge  and  thought.  In 
these  particulars,  by  systems  developed  through  many 
ages,  in  the  simplest  subjects  like  language,  grammar, 
and  arithmetic,  as  well  as  in  the  higher  departments  of 
science,  the  harmonious  structure  of  reason  applied 
to  the  world  of  things,  to  the  material  and  to  the 
spiritual  world,  is  infused  into  his  whole  mentality. 

Through  education  and  continuous  experience 
civilised  man  thus  becomes  the  reasoning  being 
and  is  thereby  distinguished  from  the  brute  animal 
world,  and  this  life  of  reason  becomes  a  dominant 
quality  in  his  consciousness,  in  his  normal  existence, 
in  contradistinction  to  the  unreasoning,  the  chaotic, 
and  casual,  as  well  as  inharmonious,  existence  of  the 
haphazard  sequence  of  events,  ending  in  conflict, 
which  would  be  his  condition  were  it  not  guided  by 
such  established  and  dominant  order.  However 
much  and  frequently  in  the  experiences  of  his  life  he 
may  meet  with  the  power  and  often  the  prevalence 
of  unreason,  of  stupidity,  and  even  of  insanity  ;  how- 


78      DOMINANCE   OF  AESTHETIC  ATTITUDE 

ever  much  he,  or  those  with  whom  he  associates,  may 
prove  blind  or  deaf  to  the  vision  and  the  hearing  of 
truth  and  reason,  the  shock,  pain,  or  revulsion  which 
will  be  thereby  caused  will  only  the  more  confirm  the 
ruling  supremacy  of  reason  as  the  normal  condition 
of  his  conscious  mentality  through  which  he  can 
realise  with  wonder,  pain,  or  opposition  the  excep- 
tional obtrusion  of  unreason — just  as  before  we 
noticed  that  in  his  perception  of  nature  the  accidental 
and  inharmonious  phenomena  only  confirm  the 
symmetrical  and  harmonious  laws  of  form  in  nature. 

The  same  applies  to  the  conditions  of  use  and 
economy  in  life  and  in  the  occupations  and  material 
aims  of  man's  existence.  His  own  work  and  that  of 
others  is  organised  so  as  to  fit  harmoniously  in  with 
the  work  and  the  needs  of  the  society  in  which  he 
lives  ;  and  again,  in  spite  of  the  failures  and  imper- 
fections, disharmonies,  ineptitudes,  and  injustices 
which  may  divert  the  successful  striving  after 
economic  harmony  ;  and  in  spite  of  the  continuous 
changes  and  conflicts  which  arise  in  order  to  har- 
monise supply  and  demand,  and  the  means  and  ends 
of  material  subsistence,  it  is  because  this  final  goal  of 
establishing  complete  harmony  within  the  discord  is 
the  leading  factor  in  our  mentality  that  the  dis- 
harmonies are  felt  and  that  society  struggles  for  final 
adjustment  and  harmony. 

The  same  again  emphatically  applies  to  man's 
specifically  social  life  and  the  codes  of  laws  and 
morals,  including  manners,  which  are  developed  in 
each  successive  period,  harmonious  in  themselves,  in 
order  to  lead  to  the  final  harmony  of  collective  life. 
If  man  is  differentiated  from  animal  as  an  intellectual 
being,  he  is  also  eminently  so  as  a  moral  and  social 
being.  From  childhood  up,  a  civilised  man— even 
if  he  develops  into  a  criminal — has  impressed  upon 
him  the  ruling  moral  standards  of  the  society  in  which 


MORAL   HARMONY   IN   JUSTICE,  ETC.      79 

he  lives.  Justice  and  charity  are  infused  into  his 
mentality  from  his  earliest  years  upwards.  All  the 
actions  of  the  human  animal  before  the  establishment 
and  recognition  of  these  leading  moral  laws,  and  the 
moral  consciousness  of  the  society  in  which  he  lives, 
were  casual  and  unrelated  to  one  another,  caused 
and  directed  merely  by  the  momentary  instinct  or 
impulse,  until,  through  the  evolution  of  consciousness 
and  self-consciousness  and  the  relation  to  other 
conscious  and  active  beings  like  himself,  by  means  of 
memory  and  association,  his  actions  are  all  integrated 
in  his  consciousness  as  emanating  from  himself — 
those  of  the  past  as  well  as  the  present — including 
even  his  prospective  desires  and  activities  in  the 
future,  his  intentions,  hopes,  and  aspirations.  Out 
of  this  confluence  and  integration  of  mental  activities 
there  grows  his  Conscience,  the  mental  power  and 
constraining  force  which  unites  all  his  past  actions 
and  the  memory  of  them  into  a  unit  and  recognises 
their  living  relationship  to  his  own  self  and  to  other 
beings  and  to  the  world  of  things  without.  Corre- 
sponding to  this  organic  and  complex  relationship, 
indissolubly  bound  in  the  consciousness  of  man  into 
a  unity  which  constitutes  his  own  moral  personality, 
there  arises  in  him  what  in  one  word  is  called  his 
conscience,  which  again  harmonises  with  the  collective 
conscience  of  the  community  in  which  he  lives.  In 
the  light  of  this  ruling  spiritual  factor  of  man's 
actions  as  seen  and  felt,  he  is  bound  to  feel  the 
constraining  impulse  to  harmonise  his  actions  with 
his  conscience.  Justice  and  charity  in  social  life  are 
the  expressions  of  that  need  for  moral  harmony 
towards  which,  by  the  very  nature  of  his  mentality, 
he  must  strive.  But  here  again,  as  we  have  seen 
before,  the  actual  experiences  of  life  will  show  that 
these  moral  laws  do  not  always  exercise  their 
unquestioned  sway.  Wrongdoings,  injustices,  and 


80      DOMINANCE   OF   ESTHETIC  ATTITUDE 

criminalities  abound — the  Good  does  not  prevail  in 
this  life. 

We  finally  come  to  the  second  subdivision  in  this 
phase  of  our  inquiry,  namely,  the  mere  functioning 
of  the  organs  themselves,  to  the  higher  activities  as 
directed  and  strongly  modified  by  the  aesthetic 
element.  But  I  wish  my  readers  to  distinguish  here 
a  somewhat  difficult  and  intricate  point.  Remember 
that  we  are  still  considering  the  origin  and  the 
development  of  the  aesthetic  element  in  the  mind, 
which  will  enable  us  later  on  to  realise  not  only  the 
whole  of  human  activity  as  directly  produced,  or 
affected  by  the  aesthetic  instinct  as  such,  but  also  its 
continuous  and  all-pervading  effectiveness,  if  not  its 
dominance,  throughout  all  the  phases  of  life.  We 
are  therefore  now  merely  trying  to  grasp  the  produc- 
tion of  the  aesthetic  instinct  as  well  as  the  confirmation 
and  strengthening  of  that  instinct,  the  view-point  and 
the  habit  of  mind,  so  that  finally  we  shall  be  able 
fully  to  comprehend  to  what  degree  this  element  be- 
comes a  directing  part  of  our  whole  mentality  (more 
especially  through  the  emotions  and  the  imagination) 
and  of  all  our  activities. 

It  is  from  this  point  of  view,  and  from  this  point 
of  view  only,  that  I  wish  you  to  realise  how  the  whole 
of  our  experiences  of  human  life  thus  impress  upon 
us  in  their  totality,  as  well  as  in  detail,  the  aesthetic 
principle.  Here  again,  as  in  the  recognition  of 
natural  laws,  in  education,  and  in  economics,  the 
experiences  which  counteract  the  dominance  of  moral 
law  and  order  in  life  confirm  their  rule  within  our 
consciousness  as  standards  of  perfect  life — of  all  life. 
For,  however  the  constant  repercussion  of  our  life- 
experience  may  impress  upon  us  the  rule  of  injustice, 
so  that  at  times  we  may  question 

Whether  'tis  nobler  in  the  mind  to  suffer 
The  slings  and  arrows  of  outrageous  fortune, 


THE   PERFECT  STANDARD   OF   LIFE       81 

Or  to  take  arms  against  a  sea  of  troubles, 
And  by  opposing  end  them  ? 

For  who  would  bear  the  whips  and  scorns  of  time, 
The  oppressor's  wrong,  the  proud  man's  contumely, 
The  pangs  of  despis'd  love,  the  law's  delay. 
The  insolence  of  office,  and  the  spurns 
That  patient  merit  of  the  unworthy  takes. 
When  he  himself  might  his  quietus  make 
With  a  bare  bodkin  ? 

whatever  irrationalities  may  thwart  the  expectancy 
of,  and  the  desire  for,  a  reasoned  succession  of  events 
by  due  cause  and  effect  without  the  intervention  of 
what  we  call  chance,  good  fortune,  luck  ;  however 
inharmonious  and  discordant  from  our  reason  all 
about  us  may  be, — these  experiences  only  confirm  in 
us  the  dominant  harmony  of  our  spirit,  the  ever- 
present  longing  for  justice,  for  the  rational  balance 
of  moral  cause  and  effect,  for  success  in  our  well- 
directed  enterprise,  for  the  admiration  of  the  great 
and  good  man,  and  of  pure  and  noble  lives,  with  the 
recognition  of  supreme  eminence  instead  of  undeserved 
failure.  We  do  indeed  find  the  mean  and  bad  man 
successful  and  prosperous.  Yet  all  our  longings  for 
moral  balance,  for  the  victory  of  moral  principles, 
for  the  realisation  of  Poetic  Justice,  only  confirm  the 
passionate  and  ever-present  hope  that  complete 
harmony  may  succeed  the  discord  and  cacophony 
about  us  ;  and  this  hope  or  passionate  endeavour, 
this  protest  or  unremitting  fight  is  the  mainspring  of 
our  conscious  existence  and  of  the  human  will,  indi- 
vidual and  collective.  It  matters  not  that  we  may 
relegate  perfect  harmony  to  Utopia,  or  that,  realising 
this  imperfect  world  of  ours,  we  may  be  fully  aware 
that  such  harmony  is  still  indefinitely  remote.  But 
the  standard  of  the  perfect  world  is  the  basis  of  all 
our  values,  and  harmony  of  life  the  guiding  principle 
of  our  consciousness,  from  which  the  disheartening 
realities  are  but  tortuous  deviations  and  bypaths. 
7 


82      DOMINANCE   OF   ESTHETIC  ATTITUDE 

The  pessimist  is  really  a  disappointed  optimist,  as 
the  sceptic  is  the  disappointed  dogmatist.  They 
profess  scepticism  or  pessimism  because  the  highest 
standards  and  ideals  dominate  their  inner  life  as 
opposed  to  outer  life  and  reality.  And,  after  all, 
perhaps  were  we  to  tabulate  our  experience  with 
statistical  accuracy,  we  should  find  that  the  cases  in 
which  true  merit  is  unsuccessful  and  the  unworthy 
wins  the  day  are  really  exceptional,  and  that,  when 
our  experiences  are  summed  up  and  balanced  the  good 
and  best  are  really  the  victors. 

In  organised  society,  in  politics,  in  the  life  of 
communities  and  States,  man  is  again  impressed 
throughout  his  life  with  their  orderly  and  harmonious 
organisation,  in  contradistinction  to  disorganisation, 
anarchy,  and  disharmony.  It  is  an  old  commonplace 
that  "  order  is  the  soul  of  the  State/'  In  every  State 
and  in  every  organised  community  within  it,  the 
harmonious  relationship  of  all  individuals  to  their 
corporate  bodies  is  the  recognised  guiding  principle. 
However  they  may  differ  in  form  and  conception, 
they  all  directly  tend  to  further  peace,  contentment, 
progress,  and  the  harmonious  collective  life  within 
their  separate  organisations  ;  but,  further,  the  life  of 
these  separate  bodies,  local  or  federal,  must  be  har- 
monised with  the  wider  unit,  and  finally  nations  and 
States  must  ultimately  be  harmonised  (among  each 
other)  in  their  due  relationships,  confirming  justice 
and  peace.  In  spite  of  all  the  changes  in  political 
organisation  during  the  ages  of  historical  evolution, 
in  spite  of  all  the  differing  forms  of  government,  in 
spite  of  all  discontent,  reform,  and  even  revolution, 
the  one  fact  remains — that  the  aim  and  the  soul  of  all 
government  is  the  realisation  of  harmony  between 
the  citizens  of  the  State  and  of  other  States  which 
will  confirm  freedom,  peace,  and  prosperity  by  means 
of  law  and  order.  It  is  here  that,  from  childhood 


POLITICS   AND  RELIGION  83 

upwards,  all  civilised  men  and  women  have  impressed 
upon  them  throughout  their  lives  the  dominance  of 
harmony  in  human  existence,  even  if  they  be  criminals 
or  revolutionists. 

Finally,  in  religion  man  aspires  to  the  realisation 
of  the  perfect  life,  the  supreme  harmony  between  his 
highest  aspirations  and  conceptions,  and  the  ultimate 
realisation,  in  this  or  in  some  other  life,  of  these 
highest  ideals.  The  soul  of  harmony  is  here  complete. 
In  spite  of  all  imperfections  which,  in  the  outer 
realisation  of  this  ultimate  religious  harmony,  the 
creeds  of  man  may  show  in  their  successive  phases, 
from  crass  superstitions,  magic,  fetishism,  idol- 
worship  of  the  most  material  nature  upwards,  through 
the  lives  of  saints  and  martyrs  and  the  creeds  which 
inspired  them,  the  ultimate  aim  and  soul  of  all  religion 
is  this  striving  for  supreme  and  final  harmony.  The 
impress  which  the  religious  life  and  teaching  thus 
give  to  the  mind  is,  above  all  and  most  directly,  the 
Principle  of  Harmonism. 


It  is  thus  that  in  the  existence  of  civilised  man,  and 
in  the  whole  development  of  his  mentality  and  his 
subconscious  as  well  as  conscious  life,  he  has  con- 
stantly impressed  upon  him,  as  the  basis  of  all  civilised 
spiritual  existence,  in  which  mind  dominates  over 
matter,  the  principle  of  Harmony  manifested  in  him 
by  the  aesthetic  attitude  of  mind. 


PART  II 
SPECIAL 


PART  II 

INTRODUCTION 

IN  the  first  part  of  this  book,  dealing  with  the  problem 
of  Harmonism  from  the  general  point  of  view,  we 
were  concerned  in  discovering  the  origin  of  the 
aesthetic  instinct  in  life  and  mind  and  its  dominance 
in  man  in  the  form  of  Harmoniotropism,  leading  to 
Aristotropism,  made  more  effective  by  the  presence 
and  activity  of  the  dualistic  senses  and  the  sym- 
metrical division  of  organic  bodies,  organs,  and  senses, 
and  their  functions,  and  in  the  single  (not  dualistic) 
senses  by  their  somatocentric  and  centrobaric  tend- 
encies, which  latter  in  turn  facilitate  the  development 
of  sentience,  perception,  consciousness,  and,  finally, 
self-consciousness.  We  traced  the  origin  of  these 
principles  back  through  the  animal  and  plant  world 
to  the  most  rudimentary  organisms,  and  finally  saw 
how  the  life-experience  of  human  beings,  possessed 
of  normally  developed  minds,  accounted  for  the 
dominating  influence  of  this  aesthetic  instinct  in  man 
underlying  all  conscious  and  subconscious  activities. 
We  now  turn  in  the  life  of  the  fully  developed 
normal  human  being  to  the  special  or  philosophical 
aspect  of  the  question.  We  shall  here  again  see  how 
in  the  mental  development  of  man,  as  manifested  in 
the  several  departments  constituting  his  systematic 
conscious  life — in  Epistemology,  ^Esthetics,  Prag- 
matics, Ethics,  Politics,  and  Religion — the  aesthetic 
instinct,  operating  through  the  harmoniotropic  and 
aristotropic  principles,  is  ultimately  dominant  and 

87 


88  INTRODUCTION 

constitutes  the  elementary  and  final  principle  of 
rational  existence. 

We  found  that,  even  with  lower  organisms,  sentience 
— which  by  gradual  stages  leads  to  consciousness — 
did  not  depend  upon  a  purely  monistic  principle,  in 
which  either  the  outer  stimulus  itself  "  mechanis- 
tically "  determined  the  nature  of  sentience,  nor  yet 
upon  the  inner  disposition  of  the  receptive  organ,  be 
it  through  entelechy  or  through  "  purposefulness. "  It 
really  depends  upon  the  triadic  harmonistic  relation- 
ship in  the  nature  of  the  outer  stimuli,  in  the  receptive 
organs  themselves,  and  between  the  two,  all  three  re- 
lationships establishing  the  final  harmonistic  relation. 
It  is  again  through  the  harmonistic  principle  in  time 
and  space,  by  periodic  repercussion  on  the  one  hand, 
and  by  physical  and  sensory  affinity  on  the  other, 
producing  corresponding  changes  in  the  receptive 
organs,  that  these  organs  are  developed  in  the  line  of 
sentience,  and  a  corresponding  state  of  the  organism 
results  from  such  repercussion  of  stimuli  and  sensory 
states,  out  of  which  grow  memory  and  association. 
But  memory  depends  upon  the  most  pronounced  form 
of  harmonism,  namely,  identity  of  successive  stimula- 
tions, or  something  closely  approximating  identity  ; 
while  association  depends  upon  the  harmonious 
affinity  in  the  outer  stimuli  (physico-chemical  or 
more  complex),  as  well  as  upon  the  inner  harmonious 
affinity  of  the  sensory  organs  and  their  activities. 

Now,  when  in  the  fully  developed  human  being 
memory  and  the  associative  feelings  are  once  estab- 
lished, all  conscious  impressions  from  without,  all 
perceptions,  are  conveyed  by  means  of  images.1 
These  images,  however,  always  produce  what  we  call 

1  Even  in  the  lower  organisms  it  has  been  determined  that  images 
are  thus  conveyed,  and  that,  for  instance,  in  fishes  images  in  the  form 
of  colour  patterns  are  transmitted  through  the  optic  nerve  to  the 
surface  and  are  actually  reproduced  in  the  scales  of  fishes. 


IMMOTION,  EMOTION,   IMAGINATION      89 

an  immotion,  a  receptive  nervous  activity  corre- 
sponding to  the  stimulation.  This  immotion,  when 
sentience  is  complete,  produces  an  emotion,  a  general 
mental  state  or  condition  corresponding  to,  and 
harmonising  with,  the  perceptive  image.  Otherwise 
the  outer  stimulus,  though  striking  the  peripheral 
receptor  organs,  fails  to  be  perceived.  An  inorganic 
body,  a  stone,  or  even  an  organic  body  not  possessed 
of  sensory  organs  attuned  to  the  outer  stimulation, 
fails  to  feel  the  stimulation  and  is  not  moved  by  it. 
Through  the  more  passive  state  of  immotion  the  step 
is  made  to  the  more  active  state  of  emotion.  Through 
memory  and  association  a  similar  or  harmonic  emo- 
tional state  or  mood  is  thus  spontaneously  evoked 
and  recalled. 

No  conscious  or  subconscious  stimulation  or  im- 
motion is  purely  objective  in  the  developed  mentality 
of  man.  We  might  even  say  that  no  so-called  reflex 
action  (excepting  perhaps  those  depending  upon 
galvanotropism)  is  purely  objective.  They  are  none 
of  them  unalloyed  as  regards  the  emotional  state  of 
the  mentally  developed  organism.  The  receptor 
organ  or  organs  are  not  purely  passive  recipients  of 
an  objective  stimulation.  An  emotive  state,  based 
upon  memory  and  association,  at  once  reacts  to  every 
stimulation  and  perception  by  calling  up  similar 
images  which  in  the  higher  human  mind  take  the 
form  of  (literally)  Imagination,  and  which  essentially 
directs  the  reaction  to  the  outer  stimulus  or  perception 
of  outer  objects. 

Now,  it  depends  upon  the  relative  clearness  of  the 
image  thus  evoked  through  the  imagination  to  what 
degree  the  emotional  and  motive  activity  becomes 
conscious,  designed,  and  reasoned,  or  subconscious, 
vague,  and  unreasoned.  There  is  thus  an  infinite 
gradation  from  the  most  mechanical  form  of  reflex 
action,  through  all  stages  of  subconsciousness,  to 


90  INTRODUCTION 

clear  purpose,   design,   will,   reasoned   volition,   and 
purposeful  activity. 

Excluding  the  insane  and  mentally  deficient,  as 
well  as  all  states  of  hypnosis,  and  also  of  those  states 
when  we  are  what  we  call  "  blinded  "  by  passion,  or 
are  in  fits  of  "  absent-mindedness  "  (when  purely  by 
the  spontaneous  activity  of  subconscious  memory 
and  association  our  emotional  states  dominate  our 
consciousness  and  resultant  activity),1  every  conscious 
form  of  activity,  controlled  and  directed  by  the  mind,  is 
determined  by  the  activity  of  the  imagination,  dependent 
upon  and  directed  by  the  harmoniotropic  tendency  in  its 
higher  conscious  form  of  the  aristotropic  faculty  of  the 
mind.  The  step  from  the  harmoniotropic  to  the  aristo- 
tropic activity  of  the  mind  is  analogous  to,  though  not 
identical  with,  that  noted  from  sexual  affinity  and  selec- 
tion to  elective  affinity  in  sexual  life  referred  to  in 
Part  I. 

Every  single  action,  however  simple,  common,  and 
material,  as  well  as  our  most  complex,  exceptional, 
and  spiritual  activities,  if  wholly  conscious,  are  all 
preceded  by  an  image  presented  to  our  inner  con- 
sciousness. This  image  directs  our  activity,  our 
energy,  our  desire  and  aim.  The  clearer  the  image, 
the  more  conscious,  the  more  completely  willed,  and 
the  more  intellectually  reasoned  does  that  action 
become.  The  vaguer  the  emotion,  the  less  defined  in 
consequence  will  be  the  image,  the  less  clear  our 
purpose  and  design — our  Will — and  the  more  are  we 
guided  by  subconscious  emotional  images,  blurred 

1  The  fundamental  thesis  of  a  remarkable  book  by  my  brother,  the 
late  Dr.  Louis  Waldstein,  is  that  "  in  whatever  degree  or  manner  these 
perceptions  may  have  been  received,  they  are  registered  permanently  ; 
they  are  never  absolutely  lost."  In  this  book  on  The  Subconscious  Self 
and  its  Relation  to  Education  and  Health,  published  in  1897,  but  written 
some  years  before  this,  in  spite  of  some  marked  difference  in  conclusions 
and  exposition,  the  author  had,  if  not  anticipated,  at  least  come  to 
some  of  the  chief  conclusions  since  made  public  by  Dr.  Freud. 


FROM    THE   HARMONIOTROPIC  91 

and  vague  in  outline  and  design  ;  but  ever  present 
as  imaginative  stimuli  in  action.  The  clearer  our 
determination,  the  more  active  is  the  aristotropic 
tendency,  even  though  it  arise  from  a  vague  and 
perhaps  faulty  image.  Within  the  focus  of  this 
determined  activity  there  are  subconscious  resonances 
and  reminiscences  of  a  variety  of  images  out  of  which 
the  one  which  attracts  and  ultimately  directs  our 
activity  stands  forth  in  sharpest  precision,  even 
though  it  be  wrapped  in  emotional  indefiniteness  of 
design. 

Take  the  commonest  acts  of  daily  life — the  eating 
of  an  apple,  the  shutting  of  a  door,  the  moving  in  one 
direction  or  another — and  all  the  innumerable  acts 
that  we  do  not  perform  automatically  or  in  a  fit  of 
aberration  or  absent-mindedness,  but  as  conscious 
activities.  Somewhere  in  the  mind  there  appears 
with  greater  or  less  distinctness,  according  to  the 
degree  of  "  concentration  "  of  our  activity,  an  image 
of  the  perfect  accomplishment  and  achievement  of 
such  an  act.  It  is  the  realisation  of  the  act  of  eating 
the  apple,  with  perhaps  even  the  anticipation  of  the 
pleasant  effects,  the  perfect  consummation  of  the 
deed,  which  presents  itself  in  some  form  and  draws 
us  on  to  the  directly  designed  action.  '  We  see  the 
completeness  in  the  act  of  closing  the  door,  which 
presents  itself  as  the  aim  and  stimulus  to  that  simple 
action  of  ours.  We  more  or  less  see  ourselves  arrived 
at  the  point  which  has  determined  us  to  move  in  a 
certain  direction  as  the  stimulation  to  our  movement. 
Further  than  that,  our  imagination  may  often  evoke 
at  the  same  time  several  alternative  activities,  and 
our  decision  then  is  marked  by  what  we  should  call 
our  "  preference,"  which  only  means  that  we  choose 
what  at  the  time  we  consider  the  "  best  " — our 
action  is  then  directly  determined  by  aristotropism. 

Every  single  conscious  action  is  thus  preceded  by 


92  INTRODUCTION 

the  evocation  in  some  form  and  in  varying  degrees 
of  consciousness,  of  the  most  perfect  consummation 
of  the  act,  its  completion — what  Plato  would  have 
called  the  idea  or  ideal  of  the  act.  We  may  have 
"  made  a  mistake  "  in  choosing  the  one  image  or  ideal 
in  preference  to  another,  and  our  action  may  be  im- 
perfect, faulty,  foolish,  or  even  criminal.1  But  when 
we  consciously  chose  our  aim  for  a  definite  activity, 
it  appeared  to  us  the  best  at  the  time,  and  the  aristo- 
tropic  force  of  the  human  mind  was  active  in  pro- 
ducing complete  harmony  between  our  individual 
will  and  the  definite  thing  or  action  without  or  within. 

Still  more  is  this  the  case  in  the  higher  activities  of 
an  intellectual,  moral,  and  social  order.  Our  pre- 
ference may  be  guided  by  pure  selfishness,  passion, 
greed,  and  all  the  "  affects  "  ;  but  these  still  produce 
a  clear  and  designed  image  towards  which  we  con- 
sciously strive.  So  also  the  image  which  forms  our 
design  may  have  been  born  out  of  an  accumulated 
habit,  of  prejudice,  or  unreasonable  and  immoral 
traditions  of  a  perverted  character  or  ethos.  Still, 
it  is  definitely  there  as  what  we  consider  best.  All 
our  actions  may  be  directly  tainted  by  the  supreme 
love  of  self  ;  not,  as  some  biologists  would  have  us 
believe,  because  of  any  conscious  realisation  of  the 
"  instinct  for  self-preservation,"  but  because  of  the 
emotional  states  arising  out  of  our  character,  which 
has  been  allowed  to  become  absorbingly  "  selfish." 
Still,  at  the  time  our  "  selfish  "  aims  appeared  to  us 
to  be  the  best. 

Nevertheless,  as  civilised  human  beings  of  a  higher 
order,  our  conscience  can  be,  and  ought  to  be,  directed 
by  the  laws  of  ethics,  as  our  reason  is  trained  by  the 
laws  of  thought,  and  our  taste  is  permeated  by  pure 

1  The  question  of  legal  or  criminal  psychology  is  very  much  con- 
cerned in  thus  denning  what  are  "  premeditated  "  actions  for  which 
an  individual  is  responsible. 


ARISTOTROPISM   AND   PROGRESS          93 

harmony  and  beauty.  Thus  the  higher  standards  of 
preference  above  the  shifting  uncertainty  and  variety 
of  individual  interest,  passion,  and  prejudice  will 
permeate  our  character  and  lead  our  emotion,  moved 
by  our  imagination,  to  choose  what  is  truly  best. 

There  is  then  developed  the  higher  reasoning  man  ; 
and  collectively,  in  human  society,  through  countless 
ages  of  spiritual  activity,  there  have  been  evolved 
civilisation  and  the  summary  of  spiritual  laws  which 
have  led  to  science,  art,  ethics,  and  religion,  and 
through  these  to  the  conception  of  progress.  This 
progress,  this  evolution  of  the  collective  human  mind, 
is  directly  and  consciously  aristotropic  ;  not  fatalisti- 
cally tied  down  to  mere  adaptation  to  the  surround- 
ings— in  themselves  blind  forces — by  the  "  survival 
of  the  fittest  "  in  the  struggle  of  forces  and  conditions 
not  directed  by  a  reasoning  and  moral  intelligence  ; 
but  consciously  aristotropic  ;  in  which  in  each  age 
the  highest  results  are  formulated,  grouped,  and 
apprehended  by  reasoning  man.  Taking  a  firm 
footing  on  these  highest  results  of  Conscious  Evolution 
— willed  design — each  age  directed  by  the  harmonio- 
tropic  and  aristotropic  forces  leads  upwards  in 
natural,  though  designed,  progression. 

In  this  aspect  of  the  reasoned  mental  life  of  man 
we  have  been  primarily  considering  the  ordinary 
activities  of  daily  life,  in  which  the  object  of  each 
activity  is  clearly  guided  by  reason  through  the 
aristotropic  imagination.  But  the  end  thus  "  held 
in  view  "  and  the  attainment  of  each  ultimate  object 
itself  are  the  main  incentive  to  our  will,  however  much 
it  may  be  guided  by  reason  and  by  the  striving  for 
the  Best.  In  one  word  :  our  attitude  is  eminently, 
if  not  wholly,  "  practical"  and  the  mental  and  moral 
aspect  ends  with  the  attainment  of  the  object.  But 
there  is  another  and  higher  aspect  of  such  reasoned 
activity  in  civilised  man,  individual  and  collective, 


94  INTRODUCTION 

in  which  the  reasoned  design  and  purpose,  based  upon 
the  various  relationships  themselves,  are  the  objects 
of  mental  activity,  and  no  further  individual  or 
practical  end.  This  we  call  the  theoretic  attitude,  in 
contradistinction  to  the  practical.  But  here  again 
this  willed  activity  of  the  mind  is  the  more  complete 
and  perfect  and  the  clearer,  the  more  it  is  the  outcome 
of  pure  will  concentrated  upon  the  mental  relation- 
ships themselves  and  not  the  outcome  of  habit, 
instinct,  passion,  prejudice,  or  other  subconscious 
impulses.  Through  the  most  highly  developed 
functioning  of  the  associative  faculties  of  the  mind, 
mental  activity  is  concentrated  upon  the  relationships, 
spiritual  and  material,  which  present  themselves  to 
perception  and  thought,  leading  to  the  final  appre- 
hension of  the  so-called  "  laws  of  thought  "  and  the 
"  laws  of  nature  "  with  which  all  individual  pheno- 
mena are  to  be  harmonised.  Moreover,  this  willed 
activity  of  the  mind  may  be  consciously  directed  upon 
various  aspects  of  such  relationships.  First,  the 
relationships  of  all  mental  phenomena  to  the  laws  of 
thought  and  nature,  out  of  which  grow  epistemology 
and  systematised  knowledge — science.  It  may  be 
concentrated  upon  the  relationship  of  form  and 
proportion  in  things  material  or  spiritual,  pure 
harmony  in  itself,  or  beauty,  which  leads  to  art.  It 
may  further  consider  the  relationship  of  outer  things 
to  the  individual  use  of  man,  out  of  which  grow 
pragmatics  and  the  pragmatic  attitude  of  mind.  It 
may  further  penetrate  into  and  systematise  human 
relationships  as  such — of  man  to  himself,  to  his  fellow- 
men,  to  human  society,  and  to  nature — which  con- 
stitutes ethics.  It  may  establish  the  special  relation- 
ship of  man  to  the  separate  groupings  in  human 
society — politics.  Finally,  it  may  establish  the 
relationships  between  the  human  mind  and  the 
highest  ideals  of  life  and  mind — religion. 


ARISTOTROPISM  95 

As  the  psychological  facts  with  which  we  have  just 
been  dealing  are  themselves  the  outcome  of  an 
attempt  to  establish  the  true  relationships  of  human 
thought,  reason,  will,  knowledge,  and  the  truth  result- 
ing from  the  discovery  of  such  true  relationships,  so 
we  must  now  turn  to  that  systematised  department 
of  the  human  mind  which  may  best  be  termed 
Epistemology,  and  examine  how  far  this  department, 
of  supreme  importance  to  the  understanding  of  life 
and  mind,  is  affected  by,  or  dependent  upon,  the 
principle  of  Harmonism. 


CHAPTER   I 

EPISTEMOLOGY 

IT  is  from  the  very  outset  important  for  us  to  realise 
that,  though  we  have  for  the  time  established  the 
difference  between  the  practical  and  theoretical 
attitude  of  mind,  and  that  though  we  ourselves  and 
civilised  human  society  collectively  during  many  ages 
of  historical  evolution  have  established  pure  science, 
all  these  forms  of  mental  activity  in  every  case  present 
themselves  as  activities  and  actions,  as  outcomes  of 
the  human  will,  though  in  its  highest  and  most  con- 
centrated form.  I  must  insist  upon  the  importance  of 
realising  that  the  highest  and  most  purely  theoretical 
mental  activity  —  pure  thought  —  represents  such 
activities  and  does  not  represent  passive  states 
independent  of  the  will  of  the  mind  that  thinks  them. 
When  we  think  we  are  performing  a  willed  and 
designed  mental  act,  in  contradistinction  to  dreaming 
in  "  night-dreams  "  or  "  day-dreams."  In  the  latter 
our  will  and  consciousness  are  passive,  and  it  is  our 
subconscious  self  or  one  group  of  ideas  or  feelings  which 
themselves  are  active  without  the  direct  control  of 
our  will  and  the  concentration  of  thought  directed 
to  accurate  perception,  knowledge,  and  the  appre- 
hension of  truthful  relations.  Every  act  of  thinking 
is  preceded  and  succeeded  by  an  emotional  state  fully 
related  to,  and  harmonising  with,  the  thought.  It  is 
the  failure  to  realise  this  fact  which  accounts  for 
the  mistakes  so  frequently  made  by  those  who  put 

theory  and  practice  in  irreconcilable  opposition  to  each 

96 


THOUGHT   AND   ACTION  97 

other,  who  turn  their  backs  on  theory  and  insist  upon 
the  primary  and  supreme  validity  of  action  as  opposed 
to  thought.1 

If  we  have  thus  established  the  fact  that  all  reasoned 
thought  is  not  merely  passive  but  also  active,  willed, 
through  the  immotions  and  emotional  states,  the 
imagination  and  aristotropic  principle  of  choice  and 
action,  we  have  also  realised  that  the  more  they  are 
thus  permeated  by  reason  the  more  are  they  directly 
willed  and  active,  until  at  last  we  reach  the  highest 
stage  of  ethical  or  scientific  thought.  For  we  thus 
have  presented  to  us  a  rising  scale  of  reasoned  mental 
activity  long  after  we  have  left  the  early  and 
rudimentary  forms  pertaining  to  the  undeveloped 

1  I  cannot  refrain  here  from  drawing  attention  to  one  of  the  most 
perfect  didactic  poems  in  the  English  or  any  other  language,  namely, 
Mr.  Kipling's  "  If — ."  Confirming  one  of  the  most  striking  defects  of 
British  life  and  mentality,  within  all  the  distinctive  qualities  and  virtues 
of  the  British  people,  Mr.  Kipling,  in  the  second  stanza  of  that  remark- 
able poem,  carried  away  in  his  exaltation  of  the  supreme  value  of 
courageous,  sane,  moral,  and  efficient  life,  ignores,  and  more  than  ignores 
— in  fact  expunges — the  fundamental  importance  of  the  theoretical 
striving  of  man  for  truth,  the  moral  as  well  as  the  practical  value  of 
pure  thought.  This  second  stanza  runs  : 

If  you  can  dream — and  not  make  dreams  your  master  ; 

If  you  can  think — and  not  make  thoughts  your  aim ; 
If  you  can  meet  with  Triumph  and  Disaster 

And  treat  those  two  impostors  just  the  same  ; 

With  all  due  respect  and  deference  for  the  great  poet,  I  venture  to 
suggest  as  a  possible  emendation  for  the  second  line  in  this  stanza  : 

Can  think  and  act  or  make  pure  thought  your  aim. 

For  Mr.  Kipling  himself  no  doubt  realises  the  supreme  value  of  pure 
thought  and  all  scientific  thought,  penetrating  as  it  does  the  funda- 
mental phases  of  actual  existence  as  well  as  the  highest  regions  of 
spiritual  aspirations  ;  but  he  must  also  realise  that  it  is  one  of  the 
greatest  and  most  urgent  lessons  to  be  impressed  upon  the  mass  of  the 
British  people  that  pure  thought  and  the  search  after  truth  in  itself  are 
amongst  the  highest  duties  of  a  civilised  community.  Perhaps  I  might 
even  add  that  the  change  as  regards  the  repetition  at  the  beginning  of 
the  line — "  If  you  can,"  etc. — may  relieve  a  certain  insistent  monotony 
caused  by  such  repetition  in  the  relationship  between  the  three  first 
stanzas. 
8 


98  EPISTEMOLOGY 

nervous  system  of  lower  organisms  and  higher  animals, 
and  have  ascended  to  human  beings  with  fully 
developed  minds.  In  the  human  mind  we  have 
distinguished  as  precursors  to  higher  mental  activity 
the  states  which  we  have  called  immotion  and  emotion 
and  which  have  directly  affected  the  imagination  of 
man.  In  what  we  call  immotion  the  accent  is  to  a 
great  degree  placed  on  the  outer  stimulus  producing 
a  response  in  the  nervous  system.  Immotion  is  thus 
chiefly  dependent  upon  memory,  which,  as  we  have 
seen,  arises  out  of  the  repetition  of  identical  stimuli 
or  of  those  having  a  specific  "  affinity  "  (which 
implies  pure  objective  harmony  in  these  stimuli, 
so  that  the  same  stimulations  coalesce  or  "  integrate  " 
and  group  themselves  together.  Out  of  these  memory 
images,  based  upon  the  affinity  of  such  harmonic 
stimulations  and  experiences,  grows  the  power  of 
"  association  "  which  forms  the  groundwork  for  all 
"  reasoning."  Moreover,  these  coalesced  groups  have 
the  natural  tendency  to  predominate  in  the  mind 
and  thus  produce  feelings  and  moods — emotional 
states — which  dominate  consciousness  and  all  mental 
activity.  All  heterogeneous  stimuli  (outside  the 
integrative  group  and  not  possessing  affinity  or  har- 
mony with  it)  are  disturbing  and  are  thus  "  ignored  " 
or  discarded.  The  result  of  this  emotional  state  in 
its  active,  moving  force  is  "  concentration  "  or 
attention,  leading  to  conscious  and  willed  activity 
itself,  arising  out  of  the  emotion  and  mood  corre- 
sponding to  the  summary  of  such  group — stimulation, 
memories,  and  associations.  In  contradistinction  to 
immotion,  in  emotion,  as  we  have  seen,  the  accent  is 
placed  on  the  inner  functioning  of  the  nervous  system, 
the  perceptive  organs,  memory,  association,  reasoning, 
will.  The  co-operation  of  all  these  elements  together 
produces  a  mood  of  the  whole  mind,  and  it  is  through 
this  mood,  as  the  unit  and  centre  of  corresponding 


ACTIVITY   IN   CONVICTION  99 

mental  and  physical  activity,  that  such  activity  is 
effective.  The  guiding  principle  of  harmoniotropism 
underlying  this  activity  is,  through  the  imagination, 
converted  into  aristotropism,  and  leads  to  designed 
and  reasoned  mental  acts. 

In  these  activities,  however,  the  mind  is  com- 
paratively passive,  as  it  is  dominated  by  the  immo- 
tional  and  emotional  states  pertaining  to  the  mind 
and  consciousness — the  mood — as  a  whole.  In  the 
highest  scientific  apprehension,  however,  the  attention 
and  concentration  are  more  actively  freed  from 
general  emotional  states  and  are  designedly,  by  a 
supreme  act  of  will,  turned  upon  pure  apprehension 
and  thought — apprehension,  moreover,  of  the  relation- 
ships in  thought,  of  truth,  and  of  the  laws  of  evidence. 
These  mental  relationships  themselves  are  converted 
into  one  dominating  emotion.  The  mental  activity 
arising  out  of  this  emotion  when  truthful  relationships 
are  completely  apprehended,  so  far  from  being  passive, 
is  the  most  active  feat  of  the  human  will.  Attention 
and  concentration  imply  that  the  mind  is  fixed  upon 
these  definite  relationships,  and  in  this  act  a  rigorous 
selection  is  made  on  the  principles  of  harmony,  in 
that  all  stimuli,  apprehensions,  and  facts  which  are 
"  irrelevant  "  to  the  relationship  arresting  the  atten- 
tion are  discarded  ;  until,  by  this  strictly  concentrated 
act,  the  mind  is  at  last  filled  with  one  supreme  emotion 
corresponding  to  the  pure  harmony  of  such  relation- 
ships, and  what  we  call  "  Conviction,"  or  "  Belief," 
in  the  highest  form,  is  produced.  The  importance  of 
these  emotive  images  in  this  phase  of  scientific 
apprehension  and  the  creation  of  a  corresponding 
emotion  or  mood  must  be  manifest.  For  the  clearer 
the  image  and  the  more  in  harmony  with  the  reality 
and  "  truth  "  of  the  relationships,  the  clearer  and 
more  "  single-minded  "  (harmonious)  becomes  the 
emotion  or  mood,  and  therefore  the  more  direct, 


100  EPISTEMOLOGY 

vigorous,  and  complete  the  act  of  apprehension.  If 
the  image  is  vague,  the  emotion  or  mood  is  vague 
and  undecided  ;  if  it  evokes  heterogeneous  or  dis- 
cordant associations  and  thoughts,  "  negative  in- 
stances," exceptions,  etc.,  there  arise  in  us  doubts, 
and  the  less  complete  is  the  final  conviction  corre- 
sponding to  objective  truth.  It  is  upon  this  selective 
immotiveness  of  the  human  mind,  of  an  essentially 
aesthetic  order,  and  upon  the  resultant  emotion  of 
conviction  (which  is  also  essentially  harmonistic  or 
aesthetic  in  principle)  that  the  highest  scientific 
apprehension  is  dependent. 

In  the  ideal  world  and  in  the  ideal  phase  of  science 
this  deductive  and  selective  l  activity  of  the  mind 
would  supersede  the  inductive  method  of  apprehen- 
sion. We  shall  see  how  in  art  the  ideal  phase  would 
be  reached  when  "  composition  "  would  be  the 
absorbing  and  central  activity  of  the  artist,  not 
material  and  technical  activity.  In  composition  the 
selection  of  elements  making  for  perfect  harmony  in 
the  work  of  art  would  be  the  essence  of  artistic 
creativeness  ;  and  the  technique  dealing  with  colour 
and  line,  with  the  writing  of  words  in  literature  and 
tones  in  music,  with  the  building  up  of  architectural 
structure,  etc.,  would  be  reduced  to  a  minimum  by 
means  of  mechanical  reproduction.  In  science  the 
laws  of  nature — force,  movement,  and  variation  in 
the  outer  world — would  be  so  thoroughly  known, 
that  we  could  produce  them  and  regard  them  in  the 
light  of  established  relationships.  Physics,  chemistry, 
and  biology  would  be  reduced  to  a  "  synthetic  " 
phase,  not  requiring  previous  analysis  of  observation  ; 
until,  at  last,  by  means  of  mathematical  formulae, 

1  See  Chapter  on  Esthetics,  in  which  I  endeavour  to  show  how  the 
ordinary  act  of  seeing  and  perception  through  other  senses  is  not 
purely  passive  but  is  active — moreover,  an  act  of  selection  partaking 
of  the  essential  nature  of  artistic  creativeness. 


PUREST   HARMONIS'M  '  ''for 

physical,  chemical,  and  even  biological  forms  could 
be  directly  reproduced  by  experiment.  Something 
approaching  this  stage  may  conceivably  exist  on  one 
of  the  other  planets.  It  certainly  is  with  God  and 
with  the  purely  godlike  life. 

MATHEMATICS  AND  LOGIC 

The  purest  form  of  systematic  scientific  appre- 
hension is  to  be  found  in  Mathematics  and  Logic, 
which  directly  represent  the  laws  of  thought,  the 
mental  relationships  applying  to  all  things  in  life  and 
mind.1 

The  full  realisation  of  truth  depends  upon  pro- 
ducing conviction,  which  is  a  form  of  emotion  based 
upon  the  harmony  of  relationships ;  this  harmony  is 
most  completely  embodied  in  the  studies  of  mathe- 
matics and  logic.  Both  these  sciences  directly  and 
in  the  purest  form  embody  these  relationships  with- 
out any  disturbing  admixture  of  individual  facts  and 
forces  which  appeal  to,  and  stimulate,  other  senses, 
interests,  and  passions  which  are  not  immediately 
concerned  with  these  relationships,  and  in  so  far 
counteract  the  essential  harmony  upon  which  truth 
and  the  emotion  of  conviction  depend  for  their 
apprehension  by  the  human  mind.  Therefore,  when 
facts  and  thoughts  and  their  complicated  inter- 
relation are  to  be  apprehended  in  their  relationship, 
independent  of  their  accidental  and  purely  individual 
nature  and  condition,  they  must  be  reduced  to  the 
laws  of  mathematics  and  logic  in  order  to  be  appre- 
hended scientifically  and  with  lasting  validity. 

But  it  is  important  for  us  to  remember  that 
numbers  and  other  mathematical  formulae,  as  well 

1  We  shall  see  how  in  art,  the  arts  of  music  and  of  pure  ornamentation 
hold  an  analogous  position  compared  to  the  other  arts  of  space  and 
time.  The  step  from  the  music  of  Bach  to  the  work  of  the  highest 
mathematician  is,  in  so  far,  but  a  small  one. 


EPISTEMOLOGY 

as  logic  and  grammar,1  deal  only  with  the  counters  or 
symbols  of  things  (abstract  as  well  as  concrete) — not 
with  the  things  themselves — in  order  that  the  pure 
relationship  should  stand  out  in  unalloyed  purity 
to  be  apprehended  by  the  mind. 

Both  mathematics  and  logic  (including  grammar) 
present  most  wonderful  structure,  the  ordered  and 
beautiful  complexity  of  which  is  rarely  apprehended 
by  the  ordinary  human  being,  who  has  been  instructed 
in  these  sciences  in  a  mechanical  manner  from  child- 
hood upwards,  and,  through  mechanical  habituation, 
is  rarely  cognisant  of  the  harmonious  complexity  of 
these  highest  achievements  of  the  human  mind, 
taking  them  for  granted  as  commonplace  facts  of 
ordinary  life.8 

When  a  fact  or  a  problem  is  to  be  fully  appre- 
hended so  that  evidence  and  proof  produce  the  final 
emotion  of  conviction,  the  highest  stage  is  reached 
when  such  evidence  can  be  brought  home  in  a  mathe- 
matical or  purely  logical  form.  But  again  I  wish 
emphatically  to  note  that  all  these  relationships  which 
make  for  truth  in  its  ultimate  form — mathematical 

1  It  is  important  for  philologists  to  remember  this  simple  fact,  as 
well  as  for  certain  philosophers  and  psychologists  who  do  not  realise 
that  language  in  itself,  as  the  means  of  conveying  things  and  thoughts 
through  sound,  is  not  primary  and  elementary  in  the  world  of  life  and 
mind,  and  that  thought  is  far  from  being  identical  with  words  and  that 
word-thinking  does  not  cover  the  whole  of  human  thought. 

3  In  ordinary  teaching  the  child  is  hardly  ever  led  to  realise  the 
marvel,  almost  miracle,  of  the  fact  that  in  "  sums  "  an  addition,  a 
multiplication,  a  division,  should  "  come  out  right,"  and  apply  to  the 
relationship  of  all  things  in  life  in  unvarying  security  of  this  Tightness. 
So  also,  having  associated  in  its  mind  the  tedium  and  distastefulness  of 
the  dry  laws  of  grammar,  it  is  unable  ever  to  realise  the  marvel  and 
harmonious  complexity  of  the  system  of  language,  like  the  most  beau- 
tiful and  elaborate  Gothic  cathedral,  in  which  definite  meanings, 
unerringly  communicable  to  its  fellow-men  in  the  exactitude  of  all  the 
innumerable  shadings  of  meaning,  thought,  and  feeling,  should  be 
conveyed  by  just  that  one  right  and  harmonious  relationship  between 
words,  sentences,  paragraphs,  chapters,  and  books,  or  in  continuous 
speech,  presented  to  it  first  through  grammar  and  then  through  logic. 


MUST   CORRESPOND   TO   THE  .REAL      J.O& 

as  well  as  formally  logical — rest  upon  the  principle 
of  harmony,  and  that,  in  order  that  the  mind  should 
not  merely  be  engaged  in  a  play  of  faculties,  a  game 
like  solving  a  puzzle,  without  any  deeper  significance 
to  individual  and  general  life  and  the  world  as  a 
whole,  mathematical  and  logical  principles  must  be 
related  to  and  conform  to  the  outer  and  inner  world. 
They  must  be  realities,  and  we  must  find  their 
mathematical  or  logical  harmony  reflected  in  the 
outer  and  inner  world,  i.e.  in  the  "  laws  of  nature  " 
and  the  "  laws  of  thought."  As  we  have  said  before, 
the  highest  aim  of  science  will  ever  be  to  approach  as 
nearly  as  possible  to  the  phase  in  which  even,  beyond 
logic,  all  truths  of  experimental  science  can  be  reduced 
to  ultimate  mathematical  formulae.  We  thus  find 
ourselves  face  to  face  with  the  (unfortunately) 
fragmentary  epigram  of  Pythagoras  that  "  number  is 
the  essence  of  all  things."  The  end  of  science  is  thus 
not  found  in  the  mechanistic  and  synthetic  reproduc- 
tion of  outer  facts  of  nature  and  of  life  by  means  of 
experiment,  as  Professor  Loeb  and  those  who  think 
with  him  would  have  us  believe,  but  in  the  reduction 
of  all  facts  of  life  and  mind  to  the  purest  form  of 
harmonist ic  relationships. 

CONVICTION 

On  the  other  hand,  though  the  test  of  truth  thus 
remains  with  mathematics  l  and  logic,  there  are  other 

1  Even  as  regards  mathematics  as  a  whole  there  are  such  individual 
differences  among  people.  I  may  perhaps  give  my  own  experience 
which  led  me,  as  a  boy,  to  be  proficient  in  Euclid  and  geometry,  while  I 
was  emphatically  weak  when  beginning  algebra  and  later  forms  of 
arithmetical  studies.  This  was  no  doubt  due  to  the  fact  that  the  sense 
of  vision  and  touch — perhaps  the  aesthetic  instinct — were  most  pro- 
nounced in  my  mental  development,  and  that  if  I  could  reduce  mathe- 
matical relationships  to  a  visual  form,  there  was  a  more  immediate 
and  complete  appeal  to  the  mental  state,  leading  to  conviction,  than 
the  less  visible  and  plastic  vehicle  of  relationship  in  numbers  or  mere 
symbols. 


i04  P:PISTEMOLOGY 

forms  of  expressing  the  relationships  which  lead  to 
truth  and  "  conviction/'  which  appeal  to  us  through 
other  senses  than  the  immediate  harmoniotropic  sense 
so  fully  and  directly  conveyed  by  mathematics  and 
logic.  According  to  our  individual  mental  consti- 
tution conviction  comes  to  us  more  readily  or  more 
forcibly  through  other  senses  and  conditions.  There 
may  be  the  demonstratio  ad  oculos.  In  such  "  demon- 
stration "  and  in  experiment,  the  sense  of  the  eye,  of 
touch,  even  of  taste  and  smell,  may  be  vehicles  for 
conveying  truthful  relation  and  evoking  emotion 
and  conviction.  Such  experiments  and  demonstra- 
tions may  prove  through  the  eye,  or  through  the 
corresponding  sense  of  touch,  the  truthful  relation  of 
things  and  facts  to  one  another,  and  even  in  the  test- 
tube  of  the  chemist,  not  only  the  colour  of  his  solution, 
but  also  the  smell  and  the  taste  may  furnish  complete 
evidence  producing  conviction.  We  must,  however, 
always  remember  that  in  demonstratio  ad  oculos,  as 
well  as  in  "  synthetic  reproduction  by  experiment," 
there  are  two  elements  in  such  a  phrase,  demonstratio 
and  oculos.  Demonstratio  must  produce  a  convincing 
emotion,  and  the  eye  must  respond  harmoniously  to 
produce  the  emotion  or  mood.  Synthetic  is  a 
harmonistic  reproduction  of  identical  conditions  and 
phenomena  by  means  of  designed  experiment. 

In  every  case,  again,  it  depends  upon  such  har- 
monistic relations  which  evoke  a  corresponding 
emotion. 

Whether  perceptions  and  thoughts  are  innate  or 
acquired,  intuitive  or  experimental,  transcendental 
or  empirical ;  whether  acquired  habits  and  knowledge 
can  be  transmitted  by  heredity  or  not,  the  fact 
remains  that  truth,  truthful  perception  and  appre- 
hension, cannot  affect  the  human  mind  towards  con- 
viction without  the  corresponding  emotion.1  Reduce 

1  See  The  Balance  of  Emotion  and  Intellect,  p.  5  seq. 


CONVICTION  AND   EMOTION  105 

all  perceptions  and  problems  to  the  simplest  laws  of 
reason  and  thought  in  mathematics  and  logic,  in  order 
to  be  effective  in  their  appeal  to  the  human  mind  they 
must  not  remain  a  matter  of  pure  intellect,  but  must 
be  converted  into  an  emotional  state  and  mood 
corresponding  to  conviction.  "  I  see,  but  am  not 
convinced,"  "  This  may  be  all  true,  but  I  do  not  believe 
it,"  show  that,  though  the  formal  relationships  in 
their  undoubted  organic  sequence  and  inter-relation 
may  have  been  apprehended  by  the  senses  or  the 
intellect,  they  have  not  yet  succeeded  in  producing 
the  emotional  state  necessary  to  conviction.  This 
emotion  is  based  upon  harmony  in  the  outer  world 
of  facts,  and  the  inner  world  of  thought  in  a  direct 
appeal  to  what  we  might  call  the  "  sense  of  truth," 
filling  it  full  with  its  correspondence  or  harmony, 
without  the  intrusion  of  inharmonious  elements 
disturbing  and  polluting  this  harmony  (such  as 
negative  instances,  contradictory  facts,  prejudices, 
traditions,  mental  habits,  etc.).  All  is  based  upon 
harmony.1 

As  I  have  indicated  above,  these  highest  abstract 
relationships  in  mathematics  and  logic  must,  in  order 
to  stimulate  the  emotions,  conform  to  the  realities  of 
outer  life.  It  may  thus  be  maintained  that  all  that 
we  have  found  in  this  epistemological  inquiry  is 
exclusively,  or  in  too  great  a  degree,  dependent  upon 
the  merely  psychological  sphere  or  point  of  view. 
But  science  has  amply  shown  that,  even  without  the 
human  mind,  in  what  we  term  the  t(  laws  of  nature," 

1  A  large  field  for  inquiry  and  experiment  is  here  opened  up  to  the 
experimental  psychologist  and  physiologist  to  find,  if  possible,  whether 
some  outer  physical  test  can  be  established  for  this  harmony  of  truthful 
relationship  and  conviction.  Experiments  made  by  Mr.  Richard 
Kerr  and  Mrs.  Watts  Hughes  on  water-colour  films  or  charts  illustrating 
symmetrical  forms  as  in  music,  in  corresponding  harmonious  pictures, 
might  perhaps  be  produced  to  represent  such  harmony  of  relationship 
establishing  truth. 


106  EPISTEMOLOGY 

the  principles  of  symmetry  and  harmony  prevail. 
In  the  outer  manifestations  of  the  law  of  causality,  of 
all  physical  and  chemical  laws,  of  astronomical 
observation — besides  mathematics  and  logic,  to  which 
they  are  undoubtedly  related — nay,  even  in  biological 
science,  in  the  realisation  of  the  work  of  Darwin  and 
Weismann,  of  Galton,  and,  recently  (in  Mendelian 
research  and  in  Biostatics  as  represented  by  Professor 
K.  Pearson  and  others), — in  all  these  the  dominance 
of  such  mathematical  and  logical  harmony  and 
symmetry  is  manifest  as  the  fundamental  and  all- 
pervading  principle. 

It  is  thus  that  in  this  highest  intellectual  activity 
all  subjective,  all  specifically  human,  desires  and 
prejudices  must  be  cast  out  of  the  mind  when  we  face  the 
world  in  search  of  pure  knowledge.  We  should  strive  to 
attain  the  attitude  of  mind,  to  use  the  words  of  Spinoza, 
11  neither  to  weep  nor  to  laugh,  neither  to  despise  nor 
to  admire — but  to  know  "  (neque  flere,  neque  rider  ey 
neque  contemnere,  neque  admirare — sed  intelligere). 
As  we  shall  see,  this  attitude  of  mind  differs  from  the 
more  practical  and  less  theoretical  attitude  from  the 
essentially  human  (though  spiritual)  point  of  view  in 
art,  pragmatics,  ethics,  politics,  and  religion.  But 
besides  assuming  this  general  attitude  we  must 
deliberately  and  in  every  case  cast  out  of  the  mind 
all  "  prejudice." 

Harmonism  in  the  relation  between  outer  objects 
(including  thoughts),  as  we  have  seen,  may  of  itself 
(through  memory  and  association)  produce  Immotion, 
but  not  Emotion,  which  corresponds  to  Conviction, 
unless  its  objective  harmony  so  fills  consciousness  and 
creates  a  completely  corresponding  mood  which  we 
call  Conviction,  because  it  may  be  blocked  by  a  thick 
layer  of  "prejudice,"  "  convention,"  or  "  authority.11 
We  may,  as  it  were,  be  in  a  state  of  Suggestion  or 
Auto-suggestion,  which  interferes  with  the  moral 


PREJUDICE,   CONVENTION,   AUTHORITY    107 

effectiveness  of  the  objective  harmonism  seeking  its 
way  to  consciousness.  Consider  what  occurs  when 
people  say  :  "  That  may  all  be  demonstrably  true  ; 
but  I  am  not  convinced  !  "  Apart  from  all-pervading 
passions,  or  equally  distracting  absent-mindedness — in 
which  case  the  outer  harmony  does  not  penetrate  or 
act  at  all  upon  consciousness — the  subconscious 
elements,  ever  present  in  the  human  mind,  may 
permeate  the  mood  and  dominate  the  emotions  to 
such  a  degree  as  to  attenuate,  or  essentially  to  modify, 
if  not  totally  to  divert,  the  direct  stimuli  coming  from 
such  outer  harmony  consciously  received.  These 
subconscious  forces,  collectively  opposing  themselves 
to  the  complete  reception  of  outer  evidence  con- 
sciously received,  form  the  mass  of  what  we  should 
commonly  call  "  prejudice,"  and  take  the  form  of 
suggestion,  based  upon  cumulative  habit,  education, 
superstition,  tradition,  fashion,  convention,  etc.  In 
addition  to  this  source  of  prejudice  a  more  personal 
form  can  be  distinguished  under  the  term  "  Authority  " 
—in  which  case  the  Authority  takes  the  form  of  an 
active  suggestive  agent,  or  a  "  Suggestor."  In  any 
case  the  path  leading  to  the  reception  of  the  pure 
outer  harmony  in  the  relationships  of  things  in  nature, 
as  well  as  in  thought,  by  the  conscious  thinking  mind 
is  blocked  by  the  mass  of  prejudice. 

But  what  this  really  shows  is  that  some  objective 
"  proof "  and  evidence,  even  the  mere  statement 
and  demonstration  of  laws  of  thought  in  logic  and  of 
universal  relationships  in  mathematics  and  the 
conformity  of  the  individual  fact  or  problem  to  these, 
are  not  efficient  and  truly  active  in  the  mind,  unless 
they  produce  the  emotion  of  conviction  and,  as  it 
were,  stimulate  and  set  vibrating  the  central  organ 
or  sense  responding  to  such  harmony,  and  thus  pro- 
ducing an  aesthetic  mood  fully  attuned  to  truth,  as 
the  immediately  aesthetic  mood  responds  to  beauty, 


108  EPISTEMOLOGY 

another  to  goodness,  and  still  another  to  the  ideals  of 
religious  life.  Only  when  the  mind  and,  through  the 
mind,  the  whole  personality  of  man,  is  moved  by  such 
an  "  aesthetic  "  mood  is  conviction  complete.  Con- 
viction thus  ultimately  depends  upon  an  aesthetic 
mood. 


SCIENCE 

Now,  out  of  this  concentrated  activity  of  the  mind, 
individually  and  collectively,  through  ages — from  the 
elementary  prehistoric  feeling  and  thinking  of  man, 
half-animal,  through  all  stages  of  civilisation,  ending 
in  the  highly  cultured  life  of  the  historical  period, 
from  the  East  through  Greece  and  Rome,  the  Italian 
Renaissance,  and  the  successive  periods  of  modern 
enlightenment  ;  out  of  this  continuous  and  inter- 
relative  activity,  complex  and  beautiful,  though  fused 
into  effective  unity,  has  grown  up  the  huge  structure 
called  Science.  This  Cosmos  or  conscious,  systema- 
tised  knowledge  emerging  out  of  the  chaos  of  confused 
and  unrelated  sensations,  experiences  and  thoughts, 
as  well  as  passions,  disordered  and  casual,  without 
correlation,  organisation,  and  unity  of  design  or  form, 
from  childhood  to  maturity  in  the  mental  develop- 
ment of  the  individual  and  from  the  infancy  of  man- 
kind through  all  ages  of  the  human  species,  has 
established  the  vast  and  beautiful  system  of  mental 
life  of  Reason  and  of  Science.  By  the  supreme  and 
ever-active  force  of  its  inner  harmony  the  subject- 
matter  of  thought,  governed  by  the  divine,  formful 
and  beautiful  Spirit  of  Truth,  has  grouped  itself  by 
inner  affinities  and  harmonies,  spurred  onward  and 
upward  by  the  conscious  image  of  the  Best,  until 
there  have  emerged,  not  like  Athene,  sprung  fully 
armed  in  adult  virginal  beauty  from  the  head  of 
Zeus,  but  by  long  struggle  and  labour,  by  continuous 


TRADITION   AND  PROGRESS  109 

evolution,  the  fully  harmonised  departments  of 
human  knowledge.  It  is  this  inherent  and  funda- 
mental quality  of  the  human  mind,  at  once  harmonio- 
tropic  and  aristotropic,  which  has  produced  this 
highest  consummation  of  the  human  spirit. 

But  it  is  well  for  us  to  remember  that  in  the 
development  of  systematised  knowledge  among  the 
individuals  of  successive  ages  direct  education  has 
always  played  its  part.  Education  has  been  active 
from  the  rudimentary  forms  of  teaching  by  example, 
by  verbal  injunction,  in  the  earliest  prehistoric  ages 
of  man,  to  our  own  highly  developed  systems  ;  and 
this  important  factor  in  the  progress  of  human  life 
and  mind  must  ever  be  borne  in  mind.  Even  if 
"  acquired  "  habits  and  mental  achievements  are 
not  transmitted  by  heredity  through  individuals,  and 
thus  evolution  and  progress  through  the  individual 
are  not  manifestly  assured,  at  least  collectively, 
in  the  tradition  which  solidifies  and  continues  the 
effectiveness  of  all  fruits  of  civilisation  in  science, 
art,  ethics,  and  religion,  as  well  as  in  manners,  customs, 
and  modes  of  living  of  civilised  societies,  progress 
can  be  guarded  and  directed  and  made  to  last  in  the 
continuity  of  its  aristotropic  effectiveness. 

CONSCIOUS  EVOLUTION  THROUGH  SCIENCE 

In  order  that  this  progression  may  move  in  its 
natural  evolution  with  the  advance  of  the  human 
mind  and  of  human  society,  it  cannot  be  left  to  the 
blind  "  struggle  of  existence,"  leading  in  nature  to 
the  "  survival  of  the  fittest  "  ;  it  cannot  mean 
fatalistic  renunciation  to  outer  force,  but,  in  harmony 
with  the  aristotropic  mind  of  man,  it  must  be  con- 
verted into  what  we  have  called  Conscious  Evolu- 
tion. Responding  to  the  aristotropic  principle,  the 
conditions  to  secure  this  must  lead  us,  in  the  first 


110  EPISTEMOLOGY 

instance,  to  establish  in  every  period  the  formulation 
of  the  highest  achievements  in  each  department  of 
science  by  means  of  the  clearest  exposition  in  the 
language  most  representative  of  the  mentality  of  each 
period,  and  not  obscured  by  authoritative  standards 
or  dominant  modes  of  expression  issuing  from  the 
mentality  of  a  previous  period,  but  clearly,  and  with 
supremely  conscientious  honesty  in  the  most  precise 
and  most  convincing  terms  of  the  age  itself,  and,  finally, 
by  the  activity  of  the  imagination,  saturated  with  and 
guided  by  the  spirit  of  science,  to  forecast  the  further 
tasks,  ends,  and  ideals  towards  which  truth  itself  and 
the  human  spirit  are  to  tend  and  strive.  Humanity 
has  amply  learnt  in  the  past  how  great  scientific 
discoveries — and  even  hypotheses — may  alter  the 
standard  and  mental  focus  of  each  age  and  establish 
new  methods,  new  standards  of  concentration  and 
effort,  limitations  of  scope  and  admissions  of  further 
relativities  unknown.  Through  ancient  Greece  and 
Rome  to  the  gates  of  modern  times,  when  Copernicus, 
Galileo,  and  Newton  altered  and  advanced  the  vision 
of  the  whole  of  civilised  human  society  in  its  outlook 
upon  nature,  down  to  our  immediate  times,  when 
even  the  unthinking  masses  have,  through  such 
discoveries  as  wireless  telegraphy,  altered  their  out- 
look upon  the  universe,  and  in  these  very  days  when 
we  have  issued  from  our  purely  atomistic  conception 
to  some  more  or  less  perfect  realisation  of  the  nature 
and  activity  of  electrons  and  protons,1  and  of  the 
problems  of  Relativity  as  brought  before  the  world 
by  the  theories  of  Professor  Einstein — through  all 
these,  and  many  intermediary  phases,  the  civilised 
world  has  completely  modified  its  mental  attitude 

1  I  would  here  remind  the  reader  that  these  elemental  units  of  matter 
in  the  world  combine  to  produce  all  objects  in  nature  according  to  their 
relative  distribution,  and  that  all  individual  differences  thus  depend 
upon  numerical  relationships  which  are  the  purest  expression  of  the 
harmonistic  principle. 


CONSCIOUS  EVOLUTION  THROUGH  SCIENCE  111 

towards  nature  and  ultimately  even  towards  the 
daily  experiences  of  life.  It  may  be  that  psychological 
research,  carried  forward  by  those  qualified  to  deal 
with  the  problems  and  mysteries  of  mind,  may  still 
further  revolutionise  and  advance  the  range  of  thought 
and  the  scope  of  truth.  But  it  is  of  supreme  im- 
portance that,  before  accepting  demonstrations  or 
hypotheses,  the  results  be  tested  and  finally  confirmed, 
until  they  are  rightly  admitted  to  affect  the  founda- 
tions of  actual  knowledge  and  to  indicate  the  direction 
of  future  efforts  and  ideals.1 

Not  only  in  the  concentrated  pursuit  of  special 
knowledge  in  the  various  departments  of  science 
within  the  esoteric  body  of  scientists,  but  in  view  of 
the  immediate  transformation  of  the  public  mind  in 
each  period,  must  the  general  platform  upon  which 
our  human  intelligence  moves  be  raised  and  modified 
from  time  to  time  in  order  adequately  to  respond  to 
the  advance  of  knowledge  itself.  This  in  one  word 
is  one  of  the  most  important  spheres  of  Education. 
When,  for  instance,  the  theories  of  Professor  Einstein 
have  issued  from  the  critical  tests  of  those  qualified 
to  confirm,  reject,  or  modify  the  highest  results  of 
pure  science,  they  ought,  through  all  the  machinery 
of  education,  to  be  made  to  permeate  the  consciousness 
of  the  general  public.  I  must,  for  instance,  confess 
that  I  myself — owing  chiefly  to  my  preparatory 
education  from  youth  upwards — find  myself  unable 
to  grasp  the  essence  of  this  theory,  and  the  con- 
sequences arising  out  of  its  applications.  I  am 
confidently  assured  that  our  children,  if  properly 
instructed,  will  not,  or  ought  not  to,  find  any  such 
difficulty.  But  to  take  an  ordinary  and  trite  analogy, 
I  believe  that  most  parents  will  share  my  own 
experience,  that  our  children,  who  are  growing  up  in 

1  See  Truth — An   Essay   in    Moral    Reconstruction,   ch.  iii  and  v, 
p.  38  seq. 


112  EPISTEMOLOGY 

the  age  of  the  familiar  use  of  motor-cars  and  of 
aeroplanes  have  an  incomparably  greater  faculty  of 
understanding  the  construction,  the  working,  and  use 
of  these  modern  instruments  of  transportation  than 
ourselves.  Thus,  besides  all  means  of  publicity,  by 
books,  and  even  by  journalistic  articles,  all  solidly 
established  achievements  of  science  and  art  (not 
mere  ephemeral  theories  and  fashions)  must  lead  to 
the  diffusion  and  infusion  into  the  public  mind  of  the 
progress  of  science. 

Still  more  directly  is  this  the  function  of  our  educa- 
tional institutions,  schools,  and  universities.  To 
enter  still  more  practically  into  the  means  of  ensuring 
the  progressive  evolution  of  the  human  mind  and 
human  society,  I  would  suggest  that  one  of  the  chief 
functions  of  the  heads  of  all  educational  institutions 
should  be  to  ensure  the  successful  establishment  of 
the  scientific  consciousness  of  each  age.  Thus,  for 
instance,  the  well-qualified  head-master  of  every 
school  ought  every  year  to  give  one  or  more  lectures 
to  the  assembled  staff,  representing  every  department 
of  instruction,  however  remote  from  pure  science, 
epitomising  the  results  of  new  discoveries  in  science 
and  art,  not  only  of  mechanical  and  experimental 
sciences  but  also  including  humanistic  studies,  his- 
tory, criticism,  philosophy,  and  the  works  of  art  and 
literature.  Thus  every  master  and  mistress  of  a 
school  may  be  helped  to  keep  pace  with  the  progress 
of  knowledge,  and,  through  their  personality,  this 
mental  evolution  in  them  would  permeate  their 
teaching  and  create  the  true  intellectual  atmosphere 
of  each  age  for  the  younger  generation  as  it  grows  up. 
In  universities  similarly  there  ought  to  be  periodic 
assemblies  of  all  the  teachers  in  every  faculty  at  which 
those  qualified  would  epitomise  the  contemporary 
advances  in  his  or  her  department  of  study. 

We  have  until  now  considered   the  mind   in  its 


SYNTHETIC  ACTIVITY  113 

relation  to  knowledge  as  it  is  affected  by  reasoned 
evidence  in  every  given  instance,  and  by  the  summary 
of  known  truth  in  the  complete  organisation  of  science 
in  all  its  departments,  and  we  have  seen  how  this 
ordered  spiritual  Cosmos  or  Reason  affects  both  the 
individual  and  the  collective  mind  in  each  period  of 
history  with  this  reasoned  orderliness  and  harmony, 
in  contradistinction  to  the  casual  and  inharmonious, 
unreasoning,  world  of  contending  individual  passions, 
desires  and  prejudices.  But  science  in  this  form 
depends  upon  the  conscious  and  concentrated  activity 
of  individuals  in  all  ages,  who  devote  their  life- 
activities  to  the  strenuous  discovery  of  truth  in  every 
sphere  reached  by  human  consciousness.  Each  one 
of  these  seekers  after  truth  (philosophers  and  men  of 
science)  contribute  to  the  organic  completeness  and 
harmony  of  such  systematic  knowledge  in  the  period 
in  which  he  lives.  It  is  the  active  work  of  scientific 
research  of  all  designed  discovery  and  invention. 

SPECIAL  SCIENTIFIC  STUDIES 

We  have  before  seen  how  the  reasoning  mind  of 
ordinary  man,  not  devoted  to  specialised  scientific 
inquiry,  responds  to  truth,  not  merely  in  a  passive 
form,  but  in  acts  of  clear  perception,  as  well  as 
reflection  and  ratiocination,  and  performs  an  active 
function  in  establishing  the  harmonious  relationship 
between  outer  truth  and  the  receptive  organs  of  truth, 
inducing  objective  harmonious  relation  by  means  of 
selection,  concentration  of  attention,  and  elimination 
of  whatever  is  irrelevant  or  disturbing.  Now  the 
mind  of  the  searcher  after  truth,  the  philosopher,  the 
observer  of  nature,  the  experimenter,  discoverer,  and 
inventor  of  all  new  facts  and  relationships  is  still 
more  active  in  the  functioning  of  his  mental  powers 
by  means  of  selection  of  relevant  facts  and  in  the 
concentration  upon  the  relationships  between  pheno- 
9 


114  EPISTEMOLOGY 

mena  and  thoughts.  Still  less  than  the  ordinary 
reasonable  observer  do  his  observations  and  his 
reasoning  upon  them  partake  of  the  nature  of  a 
haphazard  dip  into  the  lucky-bag  of  the  innumerable 
facts  without  and  within  ;  but  his  observation,  con- 
centration and  reflection  become  stringently  methodi- 
cal, and  take  the  form  of  selection  on  the  one  hand 
and  of  isolation  of  phenomena  on  the  other,  both 
based  upon,  and  guided  by,  the  essential  affinity  and 
harmony  between  the  phenomena  with  which  he  is 
dealing  and  the  willed  avoidance  of  all  phenomena 
and  relationships  that  are  "  irrelevant/1 

CLASSIFICATION  OF  SCIENCES 

At  an  early  stage  in  the  development  of  science 
civilised  mankind  has  thus  recognised  and  fixed  the 
different  departments  of  knowledge  according  to 
that  inner  affinity  or  harmony  within  the  groupings 
of  phenomena  and  the  relationships  of  thought. 
This  has  led  to  the  establishment  of  the  various 
departments  of  science.  Each  of  these  again  have 
developed  their  distinctive  methods,  themselves 
based  upon  the  affinity  and  harmony  in  the  distinctive 
nature  of  the  phenomena  with  which  that  department 
deals.  Various  systems  of  grouping  the  departments 
of  systematised  human  knowledge  can  be  and  have 
been  adopted,  as  we  face  the  problems  of  the  universe 
which  is  thus  to  be  known  in  the  greatest  possible 
fullness  and  accuracy.  Thus  we  may  divide  the 
whole  knowable  world  into  (i)  the  outer  world  or 
nature,  viewed  as  far  as  possible  by  itself  and  in  itself  ; 
and  (2)  nature  and  the  universe  in  their  relation  to 
man  and  to  the  human  reasoning  mind.  The  one 
might  thus  be  called  Natural  Science  and  the  other 
Humanistic  Science  ;  or  again,  we  may  face  the 
problems  primarily  in  the  conception  of  the  universe 


CLASSIFICATION   OF   SCIENCES  115 

and  the  relation  of  this  earth  to  it,  in  which  case  we 
should  begin  with  Astronomy  and,  related  to  it, 
Physics  and  Chemistry  and  the  mathematical  aspects 
of  these  sciences.  Turning  next  to  this  earth  we  might 
begin  with  Geology,  Geography  (in  its  various  forms), 
Physics,  Chemistry,  Biology  (subdivided  again  into 
Botany  and  Zoology — which  studies  have  again 
been  subdivided  and  specialised  into  varied  group- 
ings, especially  in  modern  times)  ;  until  we  come  to 
human  life  and  the  human  body  and  its  study  in  the 
normal  state,  including  Anatomy  and  Physiology, 
the  latter  again  being  subdivided  into  Histology  and 
numerous  other  subdivisions  of  study,  while  both 
again  can  be,  and  are,  studied  specially  in  their 
relation  to  the  rest  of  the  organic  world  and  the 
evolution  of  one  form  of  life  out  of  the  other  in 
Morphology  and  general  Biology.  On  the  other 
hand,  the  human  body  and  its  life  may  be  studied, 
not  in  its  normal  constitution,  but  in  its  abnormal 
states  of  Pathology  ;  and  out  of  these  several  points 
of  view  have  been  developed  all  the  varied  depart- 
ments of  medical  study.  In  the  wide  and  all- 
important  study  of  man  and  human  life  we  are  led  to 
the  mind  of  man,  to  Psychology  in  its  several  aspects, 
which  again  opens  the  doors  to  Epistemology,  which 
on  its  side  may  lead  to  the  study  of  language  and  other 
forms  of  expression. 

But  at  an  early  stage  the  work  of  man,  including  all 
material  and  spiritual  achievements  and  relationships, 
forms  a  vast  department  of  human  knowledge,  sub- 
divided into  definite  and  highly  organised  special 
studies  and  dealing  with  man's  life  and  his  achieve- 
ments in  all  stages  of  the  past,  leading  on  to  the 
present  and  the  future.  In  wider  groupings  we  have 
the  most  general  study  of  so-called  Sociology,  in- 
cluding Anthropology  and  Ethnology,  and  Archaeo- 
logy. These  again  naturally  lead,  with  regard  to  the 


116  EPISTEMOLOGY 

recorded  achievements  of  human  society  and  group- 
ings in  the  past,  to  the  study  of  History  in  all  its 
varied  departments,  including  also  the  special  aspect 
of  human  relationships — Economics  and  Politics, 
Ethics  and  the  study  of  Religions  ;  while  the  achieve- 
ments of  man  in  art  and  literature  in  the  past  can 
form  special  groupings  of  extensive  studies,  historical 
in  character  and  method.  Human  language,  as  the 
most  important  and  direct  vehicle  of  expression  of 
man's  reasoned  life  and  thought,  and  again  in  all  its 
varied  manifestations  and  inter-relations,  be  it  as  a 
specialised  study  of  Philology  or  as  a  study  of  Litera- 
ture in  all  its  forms,  has  been  developed  in  all  its 
ramifications  into  a  completely  organised  system 
throughout  the  world.  But,  as  we  shall  see,  the  less 
theoretical,  but  more  practical  aspects  of  such 
harmonistic  studies  have  led  to  the  systematic 
inquiries  into  human  relationships  on  the  ground  of 
moral  laws,  individual  and  collective,  in  Ethics  and 
Politics,  as  also  to  the  production  of  literature  and 
art,  as  the  direct  expression  of  the  aesthetic  instinct 
and  needs  of  man.  And,  finally,  there  remains  that 
department  of  human  knowledge  dealing  with  the 
broad  relationships  between  all  these  several  depart- 
ments and  with  the  final  summary  of  harmonious 
relationships  to  man  and  man's  spirit  in  Philosophy 
and  Theology. 

RESEARCH,    INVENTION    AND    DISCOVERY   OF    NEW 

TRUTHS 

Now,  the  life-work  of  the  men  of  science  and 
philosophers,  who  have  concentrated  their  chief 
energies  upon  the  recognition  of  truth  within  the 
several  departments  of  science  and  with  the  definite 
aim  of  adding  new  knowledge  to  the  body  of  truth 
already  possessed  by  man,  is  again  not  purely  pas- 
sive. Outer  truths  are  not  simply  received  by  the 


ACTIVITY  IN  RESEARCH  AND  DISCOVERY     117 

receptive  organs  as  passive  agents,  as  the  simplest 
organisms  react  upon  galvanic  stimulation  ;  but  the 
investigator  is  supremely  and  positively  active  in  the 
search,  the  hunt,  the  battle  for  truth.  His  selective 
and  concentrated  mental  activity,  the  outcome  of  his 
cognitive  emotion  and  imagination,  spurs  and  leads 
him  onward  in  the  direction  prescribed  by  the  several 
methods  established  for  each  department  of  science  in 
order  to  discover  the  several  relationships  by  selection 
and  isolation  of  the  innumerable  phenomena  about 
him,  in  conformity  with  the  harmony  subsisting 
between  these  phenomena  themselves,  and  to  join 
them  together  into  that  unity  which  corresponds  to 
truth.  These  methods  of  investigation  again  are,  in 
their  turn,  modified  according  to  the  special  pheno- 
mena and  their  relationships,  and  his  life-work  leads 
him  in  conscientious  concentration  and  in  preserving 
continuity  of  effort  to  harmonise  these  several 
relationships.  In  this  hunt  after  truth,  this  struggle 
with  the  confused  data  and  irrelevancies,  and  in  the 
final  victory  over  all  the  opposing  forces  of  confusion 
and  ignorance,  as  well  as  over  the  obtrusion  of  personal 
passions  and  desires,  filling  the  breast  of  man,  and 
out  of  harmony  with  the  pure  theoretical  truth  which 
he  purposes  to  grasp  in  its  harmonious  purity,  there 
issues  in  his  mind  and  soul,  through  the  gates  of 
conviction,  the  joy  of  discovery,  when  truth  reveals 
herself  in  the  sublimated  clearness  of  divine  light. 
His  activity  is  indeed  not  passive,  but  eminently 
active,  creative,  poetic.  The  harmonies  which  enter 
his  soul  do  not  remain  immotive,  but  become  emotive, 
and  lead  him  to  discovery  and  invention  and  the 
establishment  of  new  relationships  before  unknown. 
His  activity  is  distinctly  synthetic.  Even  when  his 
task  of  observation  and  thought  consists  in  the 
analysis  of  material  or  spiritual  phenomena  into  their 
component  parts,  the  mental  activity  itself  is  not 


118  EPISTEMOLOGY 

purely  analytical,  but  always  synthetic,  emotive, 
creative,  in  establishing  new  harmonious  relation- 
ships. His  constructive  imagination  leads  him  to 
recognise  the  single  elements  out  of  which  the  pheno- 
mena are  composed  in  their  organic  and  harmonious 
relationships,  and  in  so  far  all  his  work  is  that  of 
composition,  essentially  of  the  same  nature  as  that  of 
the  creative  artist  and  poet — for  his  every  art  and 
achievement  is  poietic,  creative  ;  and  the  source  and 
fountain  of  this  supreme  spiritual  activity  is  the  thirst 
and  passion  for  Truth,  which  drives  us  onwards  to 
grasp  and  retain  its  elusive  yet  beautiful  form.  The 
dominant  mood  which  overcomes  him  while  he 
struggles  on  or  is  exultant  in  victory  is  that  of  in- 
spiration and  enthusiasm,  filled  with  and  moved  by 
the  Love  of  Truth  of  Plato,  the  Amor  Dei  of  Spinoza. 
Ask  the  true  scientific  investigator  in  even  the  most 
sober,  jejune,  and  apparently  dry  subject  of  study, 
what  he  feels  when  he  sees,  as  in  a  flash  (not  only  by 
conscious  and  disciplined  elimination  of  irrelevant 
and  negative  instances),  the  fact  and  arguments  all 
fusing  together  organically  into  a  living  unit,  har- 
monious in  form  and  substance,  as  if,  almost  beyond 
his  will,  if  not  against  it,1  an  outer  inspiration  and 
enthusiasm  were  blown  into  his  soul  and  set  his  brain 
moving  in  harmony  with  the  whole  truth  which  binds 
the  innumerable  particles  of  facts  and  evidence 
together.  It  is  the  Music  of  the  Spheres  vibrating 
in  his  soul ;  the  great  god  Eros  of  Hesiod  and  Plato 
who  rules  over  the  world  ;  the  emanation  of  the 
Holy  Ghost  of  Truth,  Beauty,  and  Goodness,  filling 
the  heart  of  man  with  true  enthusiasm,  so  that  for 
the  time  he  becomes  eV0eo<?,  filled  with  the  Spirit 
of  God.  The  fundamental,  the  ultimately  ruling, 

1  I  believe  that  the  daimon  of  Socrates  (though  his  intervention  was 
generally  restraining),  the  spirit  which  he  claimed  moved  him  beyond 
his  own  power  of  will,  can  best  be  explained  in  this  sense. 


.ESTHETIC   QUALITY  OF   EXPOSITION      119 

spirit  underlying  all  theoretic  activity  of  the  purest 
and  highest  philosopher,  scholar,  inventor,  or  dis- 
coverer of  truth  is  essentially  of  an  aesthetic  and 
harmonistic  nature. 


EXPOSITION  OF  SCIENTIFIC  TRUTH 

If  thus  we  have  recognised  the  fundamental 
dominance  of  the  harmonistic  and  aesthetic  factor  in 
the  general  systematic  recognition  of  truth,  as  well 
as  in  the  creative  work  of  the  scientific  investigator, 
the  effective  dominance  of  the  same  mental  activity 
is  still  more  prominent  when  the  man  of  science 
turns  to  the  exposition  of  his  discoveries. 

This  is  the  final  stage  in  the  work  of  the  man  of 
science  and  philosopher.  As  the  schoolboy  who  has 
not  mastered  his  lesson  and  hides  his  ignorance  or 
imperfect  knowledge  under  the  plea  that  he  "  knows, 
but  cannot  express  it,"  the  greatest  discoverer, 
experimenter,  and  thinker  is  not  fully  possessed  of  his 
own  discoveries  of  truth  until  he  can  convincingly 
impart  them  to  others,  and  previously  to  himself,  in 
an  objective  form,  adequately  conveying  the  har- 
monious and  truthful  relationships  which  he  has 
endeavoured  to  establish.  But  it  is  here  that  his 
activity  approaches  so  nearly  to  that  of  the  creative 
artist  that  the  one  can  hardly  be  distinguished  from 
the  other,  and  that  in  their  main  nature  they  are 
fundamentally  the  same. 

Language  itself,  as  we  have  seen  before,  presents 
to  us  the  most  harmonious  structure.  The  welding 
together  into  living  organic  unity  of  separate  sounds 
in  words,  phrases,  sentences,  paragraphs,  chapters 
and  books,  presenting  one  harmonious  whole,  in  which 
each  word  is  in  exactly  the  right  place  within  the 
harmonious  context,  is  in  the  fullest  sense  the  pre- 
sentation of  a  work  of  art,  as  its  primary  appeal  is  to 


120  EPISTEMOLOGY 

the  aesthetic  senses  and  emotions,  ultimately  leading 
to  the  response  of  truth  in  conviction.  For  the  time 
being  the  man  of  science,  habituated  to  the  discipline 
of  pure  induction,  of  minute  analysis  and  observa- 
tion, to  the  most  sober  curbing  of  passions,  feelings 
and  desires,  has  become  a  poet  moved  by  the  same 
feelings  and  forces  as  the  musical  composer  or  the 
composer  of  a  picture  or  a  statue.  In  so  far  he  is 
eminently  inspired,  the  inspiration  coming  from  the 
harmonious  relationships  in  the  world  without  and 
in  the  intelligible  world  of  thought  within,  as  opposed 
to  the  cacophonous,  inharmonious  chaos  of  unrelated 
facts  that  have  not  been  united  into  the  organic 
unity  of  truth. 

As  we  have  seen  before  and  shall  note  again,  music, 
of  all  arts,  is  the  one  which  directly  and  completely 
expresses  this  harmonious  relationship  in  its  purity. 
It  is  worthy  of  note  that  the  German  poet  Schiller  in 
a  letter  to  Goethe  writes  :  "  Before  I  compose,  whether 
in  verse  or  prose,  I  am  overcome  by  (uberkommt  mich) 
a  musical  mood  (Stimmung).'1 

The  exponent  of  a  great  work  of  science  must 
struggle  with  the  innumerable  facts  which  he  wishes 
to  present  in  their  essential  interdependent  unity 
to  convey  the  fullest  apprehension  of  truth,  in  order 
to  place  the  several  elements  constituting  this  unity  in 
their  harmonious  sequence  and  inter-relation.  He 
must  bear  in  mind  the  wholeness  of  the  truth  while 
dealing  with  every  part,  he  must  be  guided  at  every 
stage  by  the  laws  of  thought  in  logic,  and  he  must 
maintain  the  due  proportion  and  harmony  in 
significance  corresponding  to  the  quantitative  and 
qualitative  emphasis  which  he  gives  to  each  part  justly 
subordinated  to  the  final  unity  of  the  whole.  To  call 
this  "  rhetoric,"  with  the  derogatory  implication  of 
the  superiority  of  science  over  art,  the  experimenter 
over  the  poet,  truth  over  beauty,  is  unfair,  as  it  fails 


PLEASURE   IN   APPREHENDING  TRUTH    121 

to  recognise  the  true  nature  of  science.  We  shall 
dwell  upon  the  distinctive  and  different  attitudes 
of  mind  in  science  and  art,  in  Epistemology  and 
Esthetics,  as  also  upon  the  difference  between  these 
points  of  view  and  those  of  Ethics  ;  but,  more 
especially  in  the  expository  work  of  the  man  of 
science,  in  formulating  and  in  making  intelligible  and 
convincing  the  results  of  his  scientific  inquiry,  the 
activity  is  essentially  the  same  as  in  the  other  more 
practical  departments  of  mental  activities.  Nor, 
I  hope,  need  this  occasion  surprise  to  my  readers  who 
have  followed  our  previous  results  even  up  to  this 
point  of  the  inquiry,  when  we  realise  that  ultimately 
they  are  all  derived  from  the  harmonistic  principle 
underlying  the  laws  of  nature  and  the  laws  of  thought. 
But,  not  only  to  the  production  and  exposition  but 
to  the  consequent  understanding  of  great  works  of 
science  and  philosophy,  does  the  dominance  of  the 
harmonistic  or  aesthetic  principle  apply.  To  read 
intelligently  and  to  understand  a  dialogue  of  Plato, 
or  a  book  of  Aristotle,  the  works  of  Spinoza  and  of 
Kant,  the  Principia  of  Newton,  the  mature  and  clear 
exposition  in  the  writings  of  Darwin  and  Huxley — 
nay,  to  understand  and  to  appreciate  the  construction 
of  the  Forth  Bridge,  and  the  machinery  in  a  motor- 
car, or  an  aerial  machine-gun,  produces  the  same  class 
of  emotion  as  when  we  read  or  see  a  great  drama  or 
a  play  of  Shakespeare,  a  great  poem  of  Homer  or 
Dante,  a  comedy  of  Moliere,  the  masterpieces  of 
Goethe,  or  what  overcame  the  spectator  when  standing 
before  the  Zeus  and  Athene  of  Pheidias,  or  in  the 
Sistine  Chapel  of  Rome,  or  before  "  The  Last  Supper  " 
of  Leonardo,  or  the  great  cathedrals  of  Chartres  or 
Amiens,  Durham  or  Lincoln,  or  when  we  are  thrilled 
by  the  music  of  Bach  and  Beethoven,  or  the  music- 
drama  of  Wagner.  Read  the  great  works  of  science 
and  philosophy,  and  if  you  are  able  to  concentrate 


122  EPISTEMOLOGY 

your  attention  upon  them  and  are  sufficiently  pre- 
pared to  understand  the  facts  that  are  conveyed  in 
logical  sequence  and  in  harmonious  composition  by 
the  master  minds,  there  will  pervade  your  conscious- 
ness the  same  aesthetic  feelings  which  moved  you  in 
the  reading  of  Shakespeare  or  Dante.  At  times  in 
the  reading  of  these  great  poets  or  in  the  Faust  of 
Goethe,  or  even  in  one  of  the  sonnets  of  Shakespeare 
or  Wordsworth  or  Matthew  Arnold,  we  cannot 
distinctly  discern  whether  it  be  the  supreme  truth 
conveyed  or  the  beautiful  rhythm  and  harmonious 
melody  of  the  language  which  stirs  our  aesthetic 
emotions  ;  but  in  every  case,  in  the  work  of  the 
philosopher  or  of  the  poet,  it  is  through  the  harmonious 
composition  that  truth  penetrates  our  consciousness 
and  fills  us  with  the  corresponding  emotional  mood 
as  the  beauty  of  form  and  language  fill  our  con- 
sciousness with  the  harmony  that  is  essentially  of  the 
same  nature  as  that  of  truth.1 

Thus  in  the  final  exposition  of  the  research  of  the 
votary  of  pure  science  and  philosophy  we  have  a 
reflection  of  that  larger  harmony  which  we  have  seen 
produces  the  laws  of  nature  and  the  laws  of  thought. 

We  have  thus  realised  that,  not  only  in  the  sys- 
tematic apprehension  of  truth  in  Science,  are  we 
ultimately  dependent  upon  the  active  emotion 
responding  to  the  harmoniotropic  and  aristotropic 
needs  and  functions  of  the  mind,  but  that  especially 
in  the  discovery  of  truth,  as  well  as  in  its  exposition, 
the  philosopher  and  the  man  of  science  are  ultimately 
moved  by  the  aesthetic  emotion  which  dominates 
their  imagination  and  directs  their  will  in  creative 
intellectual  activity. 

1  See  Balance  of  Emotion  and  Intellect,  p.  1 1  seq. 


CHAPTER   II 
.ESTHETICS — ART 

INTRODUCTION 

I  MUST  here  premise  one  general  remark  which  applies 
to  this  and  all  other  departments  of  human  activity, 
and  must  constantly  be  borne  in  mind  by  the  reader. 
Life  is  one  organic  whole  and  can  as  such  never  be 
mechanically  subdivided  into  watertight  compart- 
ments. This  complexity  of  organic  interdependence 
between  the  various  departments  of  human  activity 
grows  with  the  advance  in  civilisation  from  the  sim- 
pler primitive  conditions  to  the  highest  complexities 
of  life  and  thought  in  highly  cultured  communities. 
Thus  the  instinct,  motives  and  aims  which  led  men 
to  the  earliest  expression  of  the  aesthetic  order  and 
were  markedly,  if  not  exclusively,  active  in  primitive 
periods,  join  forces  with  numerous  other  motives 
coming  from  the  other  departments  of  mind  in  later 
phases  of  civilisation.  We  shall  thus  find  that  in 
every  work  of  art  at  a  comparatively  early  stage 
elements  and  aims  which  belong  to  the  other 
departments,  such  as  Epistemology  (the  true),  Prag- 
matics (the  useful),  Ethics  (the  good),  Politics  (the 
social),  and  Religion  (the  ideal),  have  intruded  and 
are  inseparably  mixed.  We  shall  now  see  this  with 
regard  to  works  of  art.  But  I  must  remind  the 
reader  that,  as  works  primarily  and  ultimately 
aiming  at  Truth  in  Science  and  Philosophy  directly 
appeal  to  our  sense  of  Harmony  and  Form  in 

123 


124  ESTHETICS,   ART 

Discovery  and  Exposition  (so  that  in  a  written  book 
as  well  as  in  an  oral  exposition,  the  harmony,  adequacy 
or  beauty  of  form  are  essential  to  or  absorb  the 
conscious  attention  of  reader  and  audience  to  a  high 
degree),  so  in  a  work  of  literary,  dramatic,  even  musical, 
plastic,  and  graphic  art,  Truth  and  convincing  per- 
suasion become  an  important,  at  times  a  dominant, 
element  in  the  attention,  interest,  and  enjoyment 
produced  by  the  work  of  art.  In  the  same  way 
works  of  art  and  science,  being  part  of  mental  life 
and  reflecting  upon  it,  have  definite  relationships  to 
utility,  ethical  fitness,  social  and  political  peace  and 
progress,  and  religious  ideals  and  aspirations ;  while 
works  of  use  and  of  morals  are  penetrated  by  beauty 
and  truth.  Finally  social,  political  and  religious 
principles  and  ideals  must  stand  the  test  of  criticism 
and  truth,  and  must  appeal  to  our  sense  of  harmony 
and  beauty  in  the  world  and  in  life. 


ELEMENTARY  PRINCIPLES  l 

We  have  seen  in  the  later  portions  of  the  preceding 
chapter  how,  even  in  Epistemology,  the  aesthetic 
imagination,  the  instinct  for  harmony,  is  active  in 
the  discovery  and  exposition  of  truth,  and  we  have 
maintained  throughout  the  whole  chapter  the  primary 
and  fundamental  activity  in  the  human  mind  of  the 
harmoniotropic  and  aristotropic  instincts.  But  the 
fact  remains  that  the  direct  aim  of  all  thought,  science, 

1  Though  I  have  designedly  refrained  from  quoting  the  literature  on 
the  subjects  with  which  I  am  dealing  here,  and  have  merely  confined 
myself  in  these  prolegomena  to  a  summary  account  of  the  philosophy  of 
Harmonism,  I  think  it  might  be  helpful  to  the  reader  to  give  here  some 
indication  of  the  bibliography  to  aesthetics,  a  subject  not  familiar  to 
most  readers,  especially  a  fairly  complete  one,  Bibliography  to  General 
^Esthetics,  by  Edward  Bullough  (privately  printed  for  use  in  lectures, 
1909),  supplemented  by  his  recent  article  (The  British  Journal  of 
Psychology,  June  1921)  on  "  Recent  Work  in  Experimental  /Esthetics." 


.ESTHETICS   A   SCIENCE  125 

and  philosophy  is  the  recognition  and  establishment 
of  truth,  and  not  harmony,  beauty  or  artistic  effects. 
In  aesthetics  and  art,  on  the  other  hand,  harmony, 
proportion,  form  and  beauty  are  the  direct  aim  and 
end  of  man's  mental  activity  and  of  the  production  of 
all  works  which  belong  to  the  category  of  art.  ^Esthe- 
tics thus  deals  with  man's  direct  activity  to  realise 
in  nature,  life  and  thought,  by  means  of  his  own  work, 
the  satisfaction  of  the  aesthetic  instinct,  feeling  for 
form,  for  harmony  and  beauty. 

We  have  already  amply  shown  how  "  form  " 
responds  to  and  satisfies  the  harmoniotropic  instinct 
in  man's  senses,  even  in  his  own  physical  nature,  in 
that  the  due  proportion  of  all  the  organs  of  his  body 
and  their  harmonious  functioning  in  health  positively 
produce  the  joie  de  vivre,  and  how,  in  the  outer  world 
of  nature  and  life,  it  is  also  impressed  upon  his  senses 
as  a  primary  need  ;  and  we  have  finally  seen  how 
this  expression  of  the  harmoniotropic  instinct  in  form 
is  conducive  to  perfect  and  facile  perception  and 
understanding  as  a  means,  until  we  now  come  to 
regard  it  as  the  end  in  itself,  out  of  which  grows  his 
production  of  art  in  all  its  numerous  manifestations. 

The  challenge  of  so  many  writers  on  art,  and  on 
the  theory  of  art,  to  produce  a  system  of  criticism  or 
aesthetics  which  will  possess  scientific  validity  and 
can  be  reduced  to  fundamental  principles,  as  firmly 
founded  as  are  those  of  any  other  department  of 
science,  can  be  met  and  must  be  met  by  serious 
students  of  aesthetics.  These  sceptics  despair  of 
such  attempts,  until  they  restrict  themselves  to  the 
mere  dogmatic  selection  and  establishment  of  canons 
of  taste  and  good  art,  recognised  as  such  by  the  "  best 
judges  "  (among  whom  they  themselves  are  included 
as  foremost,  or  over  which  tribunal  they  themselves 
presume  to  preside). 


126  ESTHETICS,   ART 


A.  FORM — PURE  ART 

Now  it  will  have  to  be  admitted  by  all  that  the 
senses  of  men  are  satisfied,  and  that  pleasure  is  pro- 
duced in  them,  through  pure  form,1  or  rather  through 
proportion  and  harmony — not  to  say  beauty — which 
exists  in  the  most  rudimentary  phases  in  nature  and 
in  all  that  stimulates  man's  senses. 

That  there  is  such  an  elementary  basis  for  aesthetic 
pleasure  arising  out  of  simple  form  can  be  shown  with 
regard  to  the  simple  activity  of  man's  senses. 

To  begin  with  the  "  lowest  "  senses  : 

1 .  The  sense  of  smell  ;   it  must  be  admitted  by  all 
that   a   stench   is   disagreeable,   and   a    perfume    is 
agreeable ; 

2.  That,  as  regards  the  sense  of  taste,  bitter  is  in 
itself  disagreeable,  and  sweet  is  agreeable.8 

1  The  use  of  this  word  form — in  contradistinction  to  matter  or 
content — may  be  misleading,  as  it  too  directly,  if  not  exclusively, 
implies  space,  plastic  or  graphic,  volume,  and  not  time  and  rhythmical 
qualities  of  movement,  and  even,  to  a  certain  degree,  chemical 
qualities.  It  is  associated  too  exclusively  with  that  which  is  perceived 
through  touch  and  through  the  eye — tactile  and  fictile  values,  and  even 
as  regards  the  latter  it  often  emphasises  line,  light  and  shade,  to  the 
exclusion  of  colour,  so  that  in  the  graphic  arts  form  and  colour  are  some- 
times contrasted  to  one  another  as,  by  analogy  in  music,  rhythm  and 
time  are  contrasted  to  melody.  In  thus  using  "  form  "  we  distinctly 
mean  form  as  opposed  to  matter — that  is,  proportion  and  harmony  in 
the  relation  between  things  material  as  well  as  spiritual. 

3  It  might  be  maintained  that  these  forms  of  aesthetic  sense-pleasures 
are  not  primary,  but  secondary ;  that  they  are  dependent  for  their 
pleasurable  stimuli  upon  association  with  other  rudimentary  forms 
of  sense-pleasure,  or  to  a  still  more  fundamental,  though  less  conscious, 
form  of  association  through  habit  and  experience  with  that  which  is 
favourable  to  the  preservation  of  the  body  in  opposition'to  what  is 
unfavourable  and  deleterious.  But  I  see  no  grounds  for  denying  that 
certain  chemical  properties  act  in  a  direct  way  pleasantly  or  un- 
pleasantly upon  the  senses.  Acid  reactions  show  violent  contractions, 
while  more  soothing  and  pleasant  chemical  combinations  give  no  such 
signs  of  reaction  and  opposition.  Moreover,  as  has  already  been  shown, 
harmonious  tones  and  their  combinations  produce  symmetrical  lines 
and  decorative  colour  effects.  I  do  not  despair  of  being  able  to  show, 


PURE  FORM  127 

3.  With  regard  to  touch,  it  must  be  admitted  that 
soft  and  hard,  smooth  and  rough,  curves  and  jagged 
lines,  straight  and  crooked,  warm  and  cold,  all  have 
their  specific  aesthetic  qualities  which  are  pleasant 
or  unpleasant,  and  that  their  pleasant  quality  depends 
upon  this  harmony  and  proportion  which  responds 
to  the  inherent  proportion  of  the  senses  themselves. 

4.  When,  finally,  we  come  to  the  highest  senses, 
with  which  art  is  chiefly  concerned,  the  eye  and  ear, 
seeing  and  hearing,  we  have  already  noted  how,  in 
line  and  form,  the  regular  proportion,  straight  line 
and  curve,  in  contrast  to  the  absence  of  such  pro- 
portion and   harmony,   in  symmetry  as  contrasted 
with  asymmetry,  both  in  form  and  colour,  as  well  as 
in  tones  contrasted  with  noises,  and  in  harmonies 
and  rhythmical  progression  contrasted  with  absolute 
irregularity,  there  is  a  direct  response  to  aesthetic 
impressions  in  these  higher  senses. 

5.  No  doubt,  influenced  by  the  evolution  of  form 
in     nature,    certain     proportions    and     rhythmical 
responsions  (especially  in  what  has  been  shown  by 
thorough  and  ingenious  work  concerning  such  forms 
as  the  spiral)  l  impinge  their  pleasant  harmony  upon 

by  means  of  psycho-physical  experiments,  that  the  scent  of  a  rose  can 
produce  graphic  forms  that  are  symmetrical  and  harmonious,  while 
stenches  produce  asymmetrical  and  amorphous  formulae.  Further- 
more, it  must  be  noted  when  we  proceed  beyond  the  simple  and 
elementary  stages,  in  which  what  is  elementarily  and  fundamentally 
pleasing  no  longer  produces  a  corresponding  sensation,  but  negatively, 
through  habituation  and  tedious  repetition,  sinks  to  the  common- 
place, that  positively,  through  more  pleasant  associations,  in  spite  of 
its  inherent  unpleasantness,  asymmetrical  or  discordant  forms  may 
produce  the  very  opposite  effect.  It  is  thus  that  certain  discords  in 
music,  in  the  most  advanced  and  highly  developed  music,  occasionally 
produce  pleasure  when  they  are  not  too  frequent  or  predominant,  and 
that  certain  irregularities,  if  not  distortions,  of  pathological  and 
grotesque  forms  may,  when  introduced  in  advanced  art,  by  collocation 
and  association  produce  the  opposite  efiect  to  their  essentially  aesthetic 
nature. 
1  See  Part  I,  Chap.  V,  p.  55  seq. 


128  AESTHETICS,   ART 

man's  senses  through  his  absorption  of  outer  nature, 
though  we  have  had  every  reason  to  realise  that  they 
respond  to  the  inherent  structure  and  function  of 
the  senses  themselves. 

Successful  attempts  l  have  been  made  to  discover 

1  See  Part  I,  Ch.  V,  p.  55.  The  most  recent  and  striking  treat- 
ment of  this  subject  is  that  by  Mr.  Jay  Hambridge,  who  has  published 
a  periodical  (The  Diagonal,  printed  by  the  Yale  University  Press,  New 
Haven,  Conn.)  developing  his  theories.  He  distinguishes  between  what 
he  calls  static  and  dynamic  symmetry,  maintaining  that  the  latter  is 
distinctively  dominant  and  characteristic  in  Greek  art,  and,  by  means 
of  what  he  calls  the  root  5  rectangle  and  the  rectangle  of  the  "  whirling 
squares,"  he  gives  definite  mathematical  formulae  underlying  the  pro- 
portion in  all  works  of  Greek  art,  and  even  capable  of  practical  applica- 
tion by  artists  and  decorators  in  the  production  of  similar  works.  I 
am  myself  incapable  of  fully  understanding  or  of  following  these  mathe- 
matical expositions,  though  I  am  prepared  to  believe  that  every  work 
of  art,  however  delicate  in  its  varied  proportions,  as  well  as  every 
phenomenon  of  organic  life,  could  in  an  ideal  world  be  formulated 
mathematically  and  in  so  far  reproduced  in  that  ideal  world.  But, 
in  criticism  of  some  of  his  generalisations,  I  am  bound  to  point  out 
that  in  the  various  schools  and  in  the  various  periods  of  Greek  art, 
Mr.  Hambridge's  distinction  between  static  and  dynamic  symmetry 
forces  us  to  recognise  that  in  some  the  static,  in  others  the  dynamic,  pre- 
dominates. I  have  myself  many  years  ago  ("  Pythagoras  of  Rhegium 
and  the  Early  Athlete  Statues,"  Journal  of  Hellenic  Studies,  1880-1, 
reprinted  in  Essays  on  the  Art  of  Pheidias,  1885)  pointed  to  the  difference 
between  static  and  what  I  called  organic  symmetry,  the  one  predomi- 
nating in  archaic,  the  other  in  the  higher  periods  of  sculpture,  as  the 
one  predominates  in  the  inorganic  world,  petrography,  crystallography, 
the  other  in  the  organic  world,  especially  in  animal  life.  In  the  Archaic 
Greek  sculpture  symmetry  (static  symmetry)  predominated  in  the  con- 
ventional and  stiff  statues  ;  while  in  the  periods  of  complete  freedom 
the  flow  and  movement  and  variation  of  life,  which  the  Greeks  expressed 
by  the  term  rhythm,  were  blended  with  the  symmetry  and  modified 
it  into  a  new  form  of  organic  symmetry  or  eurhythmia.  Diogenes 
Laertius  ascribes  to  the  sculptor  Pythagoras  of  Rhegium  (who,  in  the 
first  half  of  the  fifth  century  B.C.,  marked  the  transition  from  Archaism 
to  full  freedom,  culminating  in  the  art  of  Pheidias)  this  fusion  of  sym- 
metry (the  static  element  in  proportion  and  harmony)  with  rhythm  (the 
moving  element  in  life).  The  real  consummation  of  this  great  artistic 
task  was  reached  in  Pheidias  and  his  successors  during  the  highest 
period  of  Greek  art.  The  whole  achievement  of  Hellenic  art  in  all  its 
forms  may,  from  this  point  of  view,  be  summarised  as  the  transfusion 
of  the  harmonistic  principle  with  the  world  of  nature  and  of  thought ; 
the  principle  of  symmetry  and  proportion  with  naturalism  ;  the 


THE   GOLDEN    SECTION  129 

and  to  formulate  certain  mathematical  and  physical 
properties  in  the  proportion,  not  only  of  Greek  works 
of  decorative  art,  such  as  vases,  mirrors,  etc.,  but  even 
in  the  proportion  of  the  human  figure  in  Greek 
sculpture,  which  may  show  a  common  system  and 
regular  formulae  belonging  to  the  whole  of  that  art 
in  contradistinction  to  that  of  the  art  of  different,  if 
not  opposed,  races  and  periods.  There  is  also  con- 
siderable literature  grouping  round  one  of  many  striking 
instances  of  such  pleasing  complicated  proportions, 
such  as  that  known  as  the  Golden  Section  or  Cut.1 

establishment  of  the  types  of  nature  in  most  perfect,  most  normal,  and 
therefore  general,  form  ;  the  Naturalistic  Ideal,  the  Ideal  arising  out 
of,  and  based  upon,  the  Natural  and  the  Rational.  The  formulation  of 
the  dynamic  proportion  has  moreover  been  long  since  admitted  with 
striking  success  in  the  widest  spheres  by  the  work  of  Kepler  and  other 
astronomers  and  physicists,  and  in  the  organic  world  by  the  remarkable 
researches  of  Professor  A.  H.  Church  (Phyllotaxis  in  Relation  to  Mechani- 
cal Law],  to  which  I  must  add  in  recent  times  the  work  of  Sir  Theodore 
Cook,  in  his  The  Curves  of  Life,  supplemented  by  more  recent  articles 
in  the  Field. 

1  There  has  been  much  ingenious  mathematical  calculation  as  to  the 
arithmetical  proportion  in  this  golden  cut,  which  might  roughly  be 
described  as  the  relation  between  the  perpendicular  and  the  horizontal 
bars  in  the  ordinary  cross.  Quite  recently  (at  the  Philosophical  Con- 
gress at  Oxford  in  1920)  I  listened  to  an  elaborate  attempt  to  explain 
the  relation  between  the  horizontal  bar  to  the  perpendicular  one,  out 
of  the  structural  need  of  the  stone  or  wood,  and  the  security  of  the 
transverse  portion  to  account  for  the  ordinary  proportions  in  our 
crosses,  as  I  have  already  shown  in  Part  I.  It  has  always  appeared  to 
me  that  this  pleasing  effect  of  proportion  upon  the  eye  of  man  is  due 
chiefly  to  our  constant  habit  of  vision  and  touch  throughout  the  ordin- 
ary life  of  man,  so  that  he  naturally  demands  such  proportion  in  objects 
and  is  pleased  when  he  finds  them.  As  we  have  seen  before  (Part  I, 
Ch.  VI,  pp.  57,  58),  it  is  due  to  the  fact  that  inconversing  with  our  fellow 
human  beings  we  naturally  and  continuously  look  at  their  face,  and  in 
so  far  visually  ascribe  the  greatest  importance  to  that  portion  of  the 
human  body  which  is  above  the  shoulder  line.  This  constant  habitua- 
tion  prepares  the  visual  sense  for  that  most  important  subdivision  in 
the  human  form  between  the  line  of  the  shoulders  upward  to  the  neck 
and  head,  whether  the  latter  is  covered  or  raised  in  height,  or  not,  by 
head-dress.  Moreover,  in  many,  if  not  most,  implements  the  handles 
of  tools  and  weapons,  as  with  us  the  walking-stick,  have  their  chief 
subdivision  in  a  similar  proportion,  which  proportion  thus  satisfies 
both  our  visual  and  tactile  sense. 
10 


130  AESTHETICS,   ART 

It  must  thus  be  admitted  as  a  fundamental  truth 
that  harmony,  proportion  and  symmetry  are  pleasing 
to  the  human  senses  themselves,  and  that  human 
beings,  as  organic  and  conscious  entities,  desire  and 
strive  for  this  form  of  satisfaction  and  pleasure. 
Out  of  this  striving,  based  upon  the  aesthetic  instinct, 
grows  that  activity  of  man  which  we  call  Art  ;  and 
all  those  functions  and  the  creation  of  all  those  works 
and  the  admixture  of  this  aesthetic  element  into  the 
other  works  of  man,  primarily  and  directly  issuing 
from  other  needs  and  desires  which  constitute  the 
whole  of  human  activity,  until  it  permeates  the 
actual  life  and  the  act  of  living  of  every  human  being 
as  a  dominant  factor  in  his  conscious  or  subconscious 
existence. 

We  must  now,  however,  deal  with  the  arts  which 
are  the  most  direct  expression  of  the  harmoniotropic 
and  aristotropic  instinct  of  man. 


SELECTIVE  ARTS 

As  has  already  been  stated  in  the  beginning  of  the 
General  Part  of  this  book,  before  we  come  to  the 
creation  of  the  work  of  art,  we  are  bound  to  deal  with 
that  most  important  aspect  of  the  aesthetic  instinct 
which  leads  to  the  selection  as  distinguished  from  the 
actual  creation  of  forms  which  essentially  respond  to 
this  aesthetic  instinct.  This  selective  activity  would 
a  priori  precede,  as  historically  it  can  be  shown  to 
precede,  the  creation  of  works  of  man's  hand. 

So  important  is  this  selective  artistic  activity  that 
I  do  not  hesitate  to  formulate  what  may  appear  to 
be  a  glaring  paradox,  and  to  maintain  that  we  can 
conceive  of  a  most  perfect  future  in  this  terrestrial 
world  of  ours  in  which  the  whole  function  and  work 
of  the  artist  would  consist  of  selection  and  not  of 
creation — in  which  "  Composition  "  would  entirely 


INVENTION,   COMPOSITION   AND   CRAFT    131 

supersede  all  artistic  execution  and  technique.  To 
take  an  instance  from  the  graphic  arts.  We  can 
conceive  of  a  state  in  which  colour  photography 
would  reach  such  perfection  that  all  forms  in  nature, 
shapes  and  colours,  with  their  slightest  modifications 
and  textures,  as  well  as  all  scenes  in  nature  and  in 
life,  could  be  perfectly  reproduced  in  different  media, 
shadings,  and  qualities  ;  so  that  the  technique  of  the 
draughtsman  and  painter  would  be  superfluous,  and 
the  whole  artistic  function  would  consist  of,  and  be 
concentrated  upon,  invention  and  composition, 
expressive  of  the  highest  inner  visions  and  the  loftiest 
and  truest  artistic  imagination  of  the  perfect  artist 
born  and  bred.1  The  step  from  conception  to  realisa- 
tion would  be  reduced  to  a  minimum.  Let  no  one 
say  that  nothing  would  remain  for  the  artist  to  do  ; 
on  the  contrary,  the  artist,  unhampered  by  the 
craftsman,  would  reach  his  loftiest  flights  ;  and  his 
ideas,  his  emotions,  his  visions,  his  ideals,  would 
directly  and  convincingly  be  imparted  to  the 
spectator.  The  artist  would  grow  in  power  and  in 
activity,  as  the  craftsman  would  waste  away  into 
inactivity.  Such  a  state  of  affairs  does  not  exist, 
has  never  existed,  and,  we  may  add,  will  never 
actually  exist.  Moreover,  as  things  are,  many  an 
artist,  and  of  the  greatest  among  them,  would  remind 
us  how  much  of  the  highest  artistic  and  spiritual 
qualities,  and  how  deeply  the  significant  and 
impressive  artistic  ideas  and  forms,  were  born  in  his 
imagination  in  the  process  of  arduous  technique  and 
struggle  and  through  them.  Nevertheless,  my  para- 
dox rightly  illustrates  and  emphasises  the  truth,  that 
the  purely  artistic  function  is  to  be  found  in  the  most 
direct  and  complete  satisfaction  of  the  aesthetic 
instinct. 

1  See  Essays  on  tht  Art  of  Phtidias,  passage  on  "  The  Spirit  of  the  Art 
of  Pheidias." 


132  /ESTHETICS,   ART 

Now,  to  return  to  these  fundamental  principles 
which  underlie  all  art  and  which  justify  our  con- 
tention that  art  can  thus  be  reduced  to  fundamental 
principles  valid  for  all  normal  men,  as  much  as  the 
facts  of  science  are  based  upon  admitted  fundamental 
principles. 

The  earliest  artistic  function  of  man  is  thus  selective 
and  not  creative.  We  have  already  from  a  wider 
general  point  of  view,  in  the  First  Part,  referred  to 
this  selective  activity  to  prove  the  dominance  of  the 
aesthetic  instinct.  We  are  now  dealing  with  the  direct 
satisfaction  of  this  instinct  by  means  of  man's  activity 
and  creativeness.  It  can  be  proved  by  the  extant 
remains  of  primitive  life  in  the  earliest  periods  of 
man's  appearance  upon  the  earth,  as  well  as  by  the 
study  of  savage  life  and  the  life  of  children,  that  man's 
first  manifestation  of  such  selective  activity  to  satisfy 
his  aesthetic  instinct  consists  in  his  choosing  "  regular  " 
and  symmetrical  objects  in  nature,  in  his  preference 
for  them,  and  his  preservation  and  treasuring  of  them 
as  objects  of  exceptional  value,  because  they  thus 
respond  to  and  satisfy  his  longing  for  form,  harmony, 
and  beauty.  Like  the  earliest  primitive  man,  the 
child  will  delightedly  pick  up  a  perfectly  rounded 
pebble  or  stone  and  treasure  it,  valuing  it  the  higher 
in  the  degree  in  which  it  manifests  this  regular 
harmony  or  beauty  of  form.  The  more  varied  and 
complex  manifestations  of  such  symmetry,  propor- 
tion, harmony  and  beauty  will  lead  it  to  select  shells 
and  other  objects  of  nature  in  which  more  elaborate 
geometrical  patterns  are  combined  into  the  unity  of 
composition  which  satisfy  to  a  still  higher  degree  its 
sense  of  symmetrical  and  "  beautiful  "  form.  In  the 
earliest  stages  of  human  existence,  delight  in  flowers 
and  plants  manifesting  the  same  qualities  leads  to 
similar  active  selection  which  by  natural  stages  is 
then  applied  to  adorn  the  person.  Now,  we  must 


SYMMETRICAL   OBJECTS   IN    NATURE     133 

remember  that  such  purely  regular  forms  in  nature, 
such  as  the  rounded  pebble  or  stone,  are  not  the 
common  objects  which  generally  and  continuously 
stimulate  the  sense  of  vision  and  of  touch.  But  we 
have  already  seen  that  the  reason  for  this  aesthetic 
appeal  to  the  senses  is  to  be  found  in  the  constitution 
of  the  human  senses  themselves  as  organs  of  per- 
ception, inducing  the  further  mental  activities  and, 
above  all,  conducing  to  uniform  and  harmonious 
sensations  and  emotions,  ending  in  "  aesthetic  " 
moods.  The  very  rarity  of  harmonious  objects,  as 
we  have  seen,  confirms  the  need  and  desire  for  har- 
mony in  life  and  nature,  and  harmony,  at  a  later  stage 
of  observation  and  reflection,  manifests  itself  in  what 
we  call  the  Laws  of  Nature,  also  in  the  static  sym- 
metry of  the  inorganic  world,  and  in  the  dynamic 
symmetry  in  movement  and  growth  in  the  organic 
world,  until,  finally,  we  come  to  the  highest  forms  of 
harmony  and  justice,  ever  present  in  the  mind  and 
in  the  longings  of  social  man,  which  he  desires  to  see 
realised  in  human  life.  The  delight  of  primitive  man, 
of  the  savage  and  of  the  child  in  finding  such  regular 
objects  in  nature  as  respond  directly  to  his  feeling  for 
harmonious  form  and  to  the  use  of  his  own  life,  is 
due  to  the  fact  that  he  finds  the  ideal  principles  of  his 
life,  even  in  its  most  rudimentary,  sensory  form, 
reflected  in  nature.  The  "  artifact,"  which  is  con- 
trasted to  the  natural  object,  differs  from  the  latter 
in  that  it  was  made  to  respond  to  his  needs,  and  in 
the  most  elementary  form  to  the  need  of  his  senses 
for  regularity  and  symmetry.  The  artifact  manifests 
his  deliberate  activity  in  fashioning  the  object,  and 
he  is  pleased  when  nature  gratuitously  offers  him 
this  finished  article.  So  important  is  this  contrast, 
that  the  judicious  student  of  nature  and  of  the 
remains  of  primitive  man  is  naturally  inclined  to 
doubt  whether  some  primitive  implements,  which 


134  ESTHETICS,   ART 

show  shapes  of  tools  or  weapons — the  so-called 
"  eoliths  " — were  artifacts  (works  of  man)  or  of 
nature.1 

If  we  were  to  find  a  stone  or  pebble  as  absolutely 
perfect  in  its  rondure  as  is  a  billiard  ball,  we  should 
have  grave  doubts  whether  it  could  possibly  be  what, 
by  a  very  significant  term,  we  should  call  "  a  freak 
of  nature.'*  But  we  must  also  remember  that  in  the 
shapes  and  forms  of  flowers,  in  any  snowflake  seen 
under  the  microscope,  and  innumerable  other  objects, 
the  geometrical  patterns  would  be  as  varied  and  as 
perfect  as  anything  the  Arab,  Persian,  and  Moorish 
decorators  have  designed.  However,  the  more  un- 
common such  perfect  symmetrical  works  are  in 
nature,  the  more  are  they  valued  because  of  their 
aesthetic  qualities  and  the  more  positive  grows  the 
act  of  selection  in  order  to  satisfy  the  aesthetic  in- 
stinct by  means  of  what  thus  becomes  a  work  of  art, 
though  purely  the  product  of  nature.  Now,  in  the 
earliest  stages  man  will  select  his  dwelling  guided  to 
a  very  important  degree  by  this  regularity  and 
symmetry  of  the  structure  which  he  finds  to  yield 
him  shelter,  such  as  the  cave.  No  doubt,  as  is  main- 
tained by  some  leading  anthropologists  and  pre- 
historic archaeologists,  at  a  comparatively  very  early 
stage  he  will  make  the  first  step  to  the  creative,  as 
opposed  to  the  selective,  principle  in  art  in  that  he 
will  fashion  some  form  of  wattle  hut  for  his  abode 
by  placing  twigs  or  other  material  in  a  regular  and 
symmetrical  manner  in  order  to  afford  shelter.  His 
handiwork  will,  however,  be  reduced  to  a  minimum. 
But  even  in  the  cave  which  he  selects,  it  must  be 
maintained  that  the  impulse  which  responds  to 
elementary  needs  below  the  aesthetic  instinct  may  be 
of  primary  importance.  We  shall  again  have  to  treat 

i  See  Eugenics,   Civics,  and  Ethics,   by    the    Author    (Cambridge 
University  Press,  1920,  p.  10  seq.). 


HARMONY   IN    TOOLS  135 

with  these  subtle  distinctions  when  we  come  to 
consider  architecture  as  an  art  ;  but,  as  has  already 
been  suggested,  structure  and  construction  are  in 
themselves  based  upon  harmony.  Use,  as  distin- 
guished from  harmony  of  form,  is  itself  an  expression 
of  harmony  in  the  adaptation  of  means  to  ends  ;  and 
when  the  object  of  use  is  one  that  directly  affects  the 
senses,  such  as  touch  and  vision,  the  sensations  of 
perfect  satisfaction  must  be  reduced  to  the  principle 
of  proportion  and  harmony.  The  same  applies  to 
weapons  and  tools.  Though  the  object  of  their 
selection  and  the  impulse  which  led  to  it  may  prim- 
arily have  been  that  of  use  and  of  the  direct  satis- 
faction of  physical  needs,  the  thing  itself  and  its 
quality  as  a  tool  and  the  measure  in  which  it  performs 
its  appropriate  function  in  the  feel  of  the  hands 
using  a  perfect  implement,  or  to  the  eyes  of  a 
spectator,  are  valued  in  the  degree  in  which  it  thus, 
through  its  shape,  appeals  to  the  senses  and  satisfies 
the  desire  for  perfect  form.  Even  in  the  most  rudi- 
mentary and  primitive  tools  of  this  kind  a  very 
dominant  attribute  is  always  their  harmonious  form. 
At  an  early  stage  also  we  come  to  the  appreciation 
of  the  aesthetic  qualities  in  the  human  body.  These 
no  doubt  are  to  a  considerable  degree  determined  by 
other  factors,  such  as  strength  and  agility,  sub- 
ordinated to  or  associated  with  the  primary  need  of 
self-preservation  in  work  and  in  the  struggle  against 
animal  and  human  enemies,  and  also  determined  by 
the  sexual  instinct  and  its  selection  ;  but  both  these 
determining  factors  can  be  and  must  be  reduced 
ultimately  to  the  principle  of  harmony,  and  more 
directly  they  show  themselves  in  lines,  curves  and 
volume,  and  in  the  composition  and  proportion  of  the 
parts  of  the  body  to  the  whole,  as  they  appeal  to  the 
eye  and  touch  and  directly  to  the  aesthetic  instinct. 
That  this  aesthetic  quality  is  dominant  is  proved  by 


136  AESTHETICS,   ART 

the  fact  that  whatever  other  motives  may  be  involved, 
the  adornment  with  feathers  and  other  objects  of 
nature,  as  well  as  the  tattooing  and  other  decorations 
of  the  body,  which  mark  a  further  stage  than  pure 
selection  (and  might  therefore  almost  belong  to  the 
phase  of  creative  art)  show  the  importance  in  the 
various  aspects  of  the  appreciation  of  the  human 
body  through  purely  aesthetic  stimulation. 

In  all  these  considerations  of  the  selective  activity 
in  art  we  have  naturally  dealt  with  the  simplest  and 
most  primitive  forms,  so  as  to  apply  a  strictly  scientific 
method  to  the  exposition  of  elementary  and  univer- 
sally valid  principles  of  aesthetics.  But  this  selective 
activity,  more  or  less  passive  and  not  directly  creative, 
is  present  in,  and  never  was  absent  from,  the  functioning 
of  the  mind  in  every  phase  of  life.  In  fact,  the  more 
complicated  such  life  becomes  in  the  growth  of  civilisa- 
tion the  more  active  is  such  selective  aesthetic  function 
in  every  aspect  of  existence.  The  delight  in  the  con- 
templation of  nature,  of  definite  objects  of  nature,  of 
flowers  and  plants  and  animals,  of  the  finest  shadings 
of  human  form,  the  features  of  the  face,  and  the 
expression  of  these  features  in  a  world  of  spiritual 
gradation — all  these  grow  and  are  ever  present  with 
the  growth  of  civilised  man  as  a  source  of  satisfaction 
and  delight  ;  until  we  finally  come  (as  we  shall  do 
towards  the  end  of  this  chapter)  to  the  "  Art  of 
Living,"  and  the  direct  and  conscious  modification 
of  our  lives,  individual  and  collective,  to  respond 
to  the  more  complex  phases  of  aesthetic  and  art- 
istic principles.  Such  advance  is  necessarily  only 
attained  when  individuals  and  communities  have 
passed  beyond  the  primitive  and  rudimentary  stages 
in  which  all  energies  and  activities  are  practically 
absorbed  by  the  need  of  struggling  with  untoward 
conditions  and  surroundings  for  mere  self-preserva- 
tion, and  there  is  no  transitional  period  and  energy 


THE  WORK   OF   ART  137 

left  between  work  and  absolute  rest.  It  presupposes 
and  predemands  a  surplus  of  energy  and  a  certain 
minimum  of  freedom  from  work  and  from  interested 
care  in  order  that  "  recreation  "  takes  an  active  form 
in  play,  physical  and  mental/  in  the  physical  pleasure 
of  exercises  and  athletic  games,  as  well  as  in  the 
spiritual  delights  of  the  mind  most  directly  expressed 
by  art.  Of  all  ages  of  the  past  it  was  in  the  Hellenic 
world  and  through  the  Hellenic  world  that  this 
development  of  the  common  life  of  civilised  man 
reached  its  most  perfect  expression  and  type,  and  has, 
in  the  deepest  sense  of  the  word,  ever  since  become 
"  classical  "  in  the  estimation  of  civilised  peoples. 

THE  WORK  OF  ART 

The  step  from  the  selective  to  the  creative  phase  of 
art  is  made  by  those  aesthetic  impulses,  present  in  the 
earliest  conditions  of  primitive  and  savage  life,  which 
can  be  said  to  produce  activities  and  which,  moreover, 
are  so  spontaneous,  as  expressions  of  more  or  less 
physiological  motives,  that,  though  fully  and  directly 
expressing  aesthetic  instincts,  they  might  still  be 
considered  to  be  selective  and  not  consciously  creative. 
Such  are  the  rudimentary  forms  of  the  art  of  dancing 
(including  gymnastics),  music  and  poetry.  They 
are  the  spontaneous  and  momentary  expressions  of 
aesthetic  emotive  impulse,  and  pass  away  and  vanish 
when  the  impulse  has  spent  itself.  On  the  other 
hand,  as  soon  as  these  impulsive  expressions,  whether 
material  or  moral,  in  their  repetition  have  been 
organised  into  some  formal  system,  and  their  leading 
features  and  essential  characteristics  have  been 
tabulated  in  memory,  they  must  definitely  be  classed 
as  works  of  art,  and,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  they  may 
develop  into  the  purest,  as  well  as  the  highest,  forms 

i  See  Part  I,  pp.  66,  seq. 


138  AESTHETICS,   ART 

of  artistic  production.  Dancing  is  thus  one  of  the 
first,  if  not  the  first  of  arts.  In  itself  it  is  a  pure 
aesthetic  act.  It  is  not  the  work  of  the  hand,  of  handi- 
craft, guided  by  the  eye  or  the  ear  to  fashion  forms  ; 
but  it  is  the  work  of  the  whole  body  in  which  move- 
ment is  composed  and  made  symmetrical  as  fully  as 
the  work  of  the  decorator  traces  such  forms  in  various 
materials.  It  certainly  is  one  of  the  earliest  arts,  as 
practically  all  savage  people  practised  it  and  as  all 
archaeological  records  give  evidence  of  its  existence. 
The  hopping  and  jumping  and  evolutions  of  the  child 
(not  to  mention  the  gambolling  of  young  animals)  is 
an  activity  not  directed  by  any  purpose  of  utility  or 
self-preservation,  but  is  merely  an  expression  of  the 
perfect  functioning  of  the  organs  of  the  body,  and  of 
their  normal  or  harmonious  relation  to  one  another. 
Symmetry  and  rhythmical  regularity  at  the  earliest 
stages  make  themselves  felt  and  in  themselves  lead 
to  satisfaction — pleasure  in  the  performers  and 
admiration  on  the  part  of  the  observers. 

At  a  very  early  stage  dancing  is  combined  with 
music  and  poetry — no  doubt  in  their  most  primitive 
forms.  This  is  natural,  and  affords  evidence  of  the 
inter-relation  between  the  arts  of  time  and  the  arts 
of  space,  the  visual,  tactile  and  graphic  arts  with  the 
arts  that  are  based  upon  symmetrical  movement  and 
rhythmical  symmetry,  proving  the  elementary  unity 
of  these  contrasted  forms. 

At  an  early  stage,  however,  it  loses  its  purity  in 
that  it  absorbs  other  forms  and  motives  of  expression 
belonging  to  different  and  not  purely  aesthetic  needs 
and  impulses — a  distinction  with  which  we  shall  have 
to  deal  more  fully  in  our  treatment  of  the  creative 
arts.  It  then  becomes  an  expression  (though  an 
aesthetic,  artistic  expression)  of  the  other  phases  of 
primitive  life.  Thus  sexual  life,  its  needs  and  im- 
pulses, is  at  an  early  phase  blended  with  the  purely 


THE   DANCE  139 

aesthetic  expression  of  movement  in  the  dance,  in 
that  sexual  longing  and  sexual  attractiveness  are 
consciously  expressed  in  it.  The  same  can  be  traced 
in  the  movements,  if  not  dances,  of  animals  in  the 
breeding  period  ;  and  we  can  even  discern,  as  I 
have  done,  the  direct  influence  of  such  choroplastic 
motives  from  animal  life  in  the  national  dances  of 
civilised  communities,  such  as  among  the  moun- 
taineers of  the  Tyrolese  and  Bavarian  Highlands,  in 
which  the  movements  of  certain  birds  are  directly, 
though  not  consciously,  imitated.  The  war-dance  is 
common  to  lost  savage  tribes,  and  has  thus  absorbed 
a  number  of  other  elements  and  motives  to  stimulate 
courage  in  the  dancer  and  fear  in  his  enemy.  Among 
them  elements  of  actual  life  can  thus  be  discerned. 

The  evolution  of  the  dance  among  the  Ancient 
Greeks  is  most  significant  and  interesting.  At  a 
very  early  stage  it  became  the  most  important 
artistic  and  decorative  factor  in  all  their  ceremonies, 
and  was  naturally  and  spontaneously  associated  also 
with  its  congenital  counterpart  in  a  vigorous  and 
manly  people,  namely,  gymnastic  and  athletic  games 
and  evolutions.  It  formed  an  important  part  in  the 
funeral  rites  and  ceremonies,  and,  through  these  and 
through  the  general  development  of  their  games  and 
art,  in  the  development  of  their  lyric  poetry  and  their 
drama.  Early  Minoan  and  Mycenaean  monuments 
exhibit  its  prevalence  in  festivals  and  "  artistic  " 
entertainments  along  with  the  representation  of 
gymnastic  feats.  The  skill  of  the  performers  of 
such  feats,  though  manifesting  strength  and  agility 
(and  thus  arousing  admiration),  is  chiefly  dependent 
upon  the  symmetrical  and  decorative  quality  of  the 
resulting  movements  in  these  performances,  as  can 
be  seen  in  the  work  of  any  acrobat  of  our  day. 

On  the  Homeric  Shield  of  Achilles  the  symmetrical 
division  of  the  two  semi-choruses  accentuates  the 


140  ESTHETICS,   ART 

symmetrical  composition  of  that  elaborate  work  with 
its  numerous  scenes,  and  shows  how,  in  those  days 
certainly,  the  rules  and  figures  of  the  dances  were 
established  on  complicated  symmetrical  lines.  The 
position  of  the  Chorus  was  one  of  predominant 
importance  in  the  earlier  days  of  Greek  drama,  and 
depended  upon  the  old  religious  ceremonies,  especially 
in  the  Dionysian  festivals,  in  which  dancing  no  doubt 
formed  originally  the  most  important  part.  We  can 
follow  here  its  interesting  evolution  in  tragedy  and 
comedy.  But  undoubtedly  it  fulfilled  many  of  the 
functions  of  the  drama  in  its  later  history  throughout 
the  world,  and  is,  as  regards  the  origin  of  the  drama 
and  its  further  development  in  Greece,  an  artistic 
element  of  central  importance.  In  the  history  of 
modern  nations  dancing  has  also  played,  and  plays, 
a  most  important  part  as  a  powerful  and  direct 
expression  of  artistic  needs ;  and  in  dramatic  art, 
through  the  pantomime  and  the  ballet,  absorbing  in 
itself  lyrical  and  dramatic  elements  and  especially 
music,  it  has  taken,  and  takes  now,  a  very  prominent 
place  in  the  evolution  of  the  complex  and  higher  life 
of  cultured  communities. 

The  art  of  music  has  gone  through  similar  stages  of 
evolution.  From  the  earliest  and  crudest  emission 
of  rhythmical  sounds  and  the  satisfaction  and  delight 
which  primitive  man  had  in  this  response  to  the 
aesthetic  elements  in  his  sense-perception,  it  has 
advanced  to  one  of  the  highest  and  most  complex 
arts,  uniting  with  its  own  form  those  of  other  arts,  as  it 
has  also  been  incorporated  to  strengthen  and  develop 
the  artistic  qualities  of  the  sister  arts  of  poetry  and 
drama.  At  an  early  stage,  in  addition  to  the  human 
voice,  instruments  were  fashioned  to  produce  rhyth- 
mical and  melodious  harmonies  as  the  direct  expression 
of  aesthetic  impulse  and  needs.  The  tom-tom,  which 
merely  renders  the  rhythmical  side  of  musical 


MUSIC   OF   SAVAGES   AND   CHILDREN       141 

harmony,  is  an  early  and  universal  instrument  of  the 
most  primitive  savages.  With  the  addition  of  sounds 
developed  more  and  more  methodically  by  the  human 
voice,  aided  by  the  clapping  of  hands  and  other 
instruments,  it  is  at  an  early  stage  fused  with  the 
dance  in  this  most  primitive  transitional  period 
from  selective  to  creative  art. 

The  same  applies  to  poetry  in  this  selective  transi- 
tional stage.  The  sounds  emitted  by  the  shouting 
or  singing  savage  or  child  are  soon  supplemented  by 
the  rhythmical  enunciation  of  words,  and  can  be 
illustrated  by  the  early  sing-song  babbling  of  any 
child.  It  is  important  to  remember,  in  the  light  of 
this  inquiry  into  elementary  aesthetic  principles,  that 
the  enunciation  of  language  is  at  first  only  used  as 
a  means  and  not  as  an  end  in  itself.  That  is  to  say, 
that  it  is  merely  applied  to  convey  certain  necessary 
meanings,  and  that  the  conscious  efforts  of  the  speaker, 
the  conscious  and  emotive  aim  which  he  has  in 
speaking,  is  merely  to  convey  the  meaning  or  to  attain 
his  object,  and  not  to  enunciate  sounds  and  words 
themselves.  But  when  the  child,  or  when  primitive 
man,  babbles  his  "  verses,'1  the  sound,  and  moreover 
the  harmonious  sound,  of  the  succession  of  words  is 
the  primary  and  ultimate  end  of  speech.  M.  Jourdain, 
who,  in  Moli&re's  comedy,  is  astonished  to  find 
that  he  speaks  habitually  in  prose,  enunciates  an 
important  and  fundamental  truth  in  the  historical 
evolution  of  human  language,  as  an  object  of  art. 
Moreover,  it  is  as  well  to  remember  that  when  man 
had  reached  the  phase  of  writing  down  his  thoughts 
and  feelings,  and  desired  to  do  more  than  convey  his 
more  material  expressions  and  meanings,  he  generally, 
if  not  always,  did  so  in  verse,  or  in  some  metrical  or 
aesthetic  form.  Not  only  did  the  earliest  Greek 
philosophers  write  their  philosophy  in  verse,  but,  in 
the  religious  writings  of  all  earlier  peoples  of  the  East 


142  AESTHETICS,   ART 

and  West,  including  the  Bible,  some  form  of  metrical 
or  rhythmical  responsions,  or  even  of  elaborate  versi- 
fication, is  dominant. 

CREATIVE  ART 

Now,  leaving  the  selective  phase  as  well  as  the 
transitional  steps  to  the  creative  sphere  of  art,  we 
must  at  first  deal  with  the  purest  form  and  expression 
of  art  as  such,  unalloyed  with,  and  undiluted  by, 
elements  that  belong  to  other  spheres  of  mental 
activity.  In  using  this  term  purest,  it  is  not  meant 
that  it  is  synonymous  with  the  highest  development 
of  art  to  whatever  qualitative  height  in  artistic 
expressiveness  some  of  the  arts,  notably  music,  may 
have  attained  when  remaining  strictly  within  the 
bounds  of  their  pure  aestheticism.  The  two  depart- 
ments of  art  which,  among  all  arts  and  their  works, 
are  from  their  very  nature  purest  in  aesthetic  expres- 
sion, are  the  arts  of  music  and  of  decoration,  though, 
as  we  shall  see,  they  may  in  the  earliest,  as  well  as 
in  the  latest,  periods  become  associated,  or  blended 
with,  other  departments  of  art  and  in  so  far  themselves 
lose  the  paramount  quality  of  this  aesthetic  purity. 

Music 

In  music  all  means  of  expression,  vocal  and  instru- 
mental, are  applied  more  or  less  to  produce  sounds  in 
tones  and  their  combinations  which  directly  satisfy 
the  sense  of  form,  and  not  for  any  other  purpose. 

The  human  voice  is  used  to  emit  sounds  in  singing 
which  reach  far  beyond  mere  interjection,  just  as  it 
is  also  used  for  the  formulation  of  words  in  ordinary 
speaking.  Calls  or  shrieks  are  emitted  to  express 
sensations  or  emotions  for  the  immediate  and  sole 
purpose  of  expressing  pleasure  or  pain,  in  laughing 
or  weeping,  or  in  calls  to  attract  attention  or  ask 


MUSIC  AS  A   FORMAL   ART  143 

for  help,  or  utter  defiance,  etc.  In  these  phases  they 
partake  to  a  considerable  degree  of  the  nature  of 
reflex  actions,  as  far  as  the  definite  sounds  are  con- 
cerned. But  when  the  emitted  sounds  or  tones 
become  what  we  must  call  "  lyrical,"  harmonious, 
symmetrical,  and  are  emitted  because  of  an  aesthetic 
impulse  producing  the  corresponding  form  and  the 
delight  in  it,  we  attain  to  what  we  call  the  "  song." 
They  may  be  expressions  of  emotions  as  well,  or 
rather  of  definite  emotional  states  or  moods  not 
induced  as  a  reflex  to  one  definite  sensation  or 
experience  and  ending  with  this  individual  expression. 
But  as  definite  vocal  expressions  of  joy,  sadness, 
longing,  love,  courage,  and  as  manifesting  these 
emotions  and  moods  in  the  singer,  they  convey  to  and 
produce  in  the  hearer  the  same  or  similar  emotions 
or  moods.  We  thus  have  joyful  and  sad  songs,  those 
that  express  longing  and  love,  anger,  courage  and 
warlike  passions,  grief,  and  the  whole  scale  of  human 
emotions.  But  we  must  again  remember  that  they 
are  not  the  direct  and  individual  expression  of  an 
individual  feeling  of  joy,  sadness,  or  love.  The  object 
of  such  a  feeling  does  not  fill  the  consciousness,  and 
the  sounds  are  not  an  unconscious  means  of  inter- 
jection or  exclamation  ;  but  the  expression  itself 
reproduces  the  emotion  and,  by  this  reproduction, 
awakens  satisfaction  or  pleasure  in  the  producer  and 
in  the  hearer. 

Thus  at  an  early  stage  vocal  music  develops  sub- 
divisions of  joyful  and  sad  character,  definite  types  of 
song  like  the  love-song,  battle-song,  dirge,  etc. 

So  also  at  a  comparatively  early  stage  vocal  music 
is  combined  and  blended  with  poetry  and  dancing, 
and  these  combinations  again  lead  to  further  sub- 
divisions in  which  the  song  is  subordinated  to  more 
complicated  and  wider  purposes  in  early  ceremonies 
and  rites,  religious  and  secular — in  dirges,  at  funeral 


144  ESTHETICS,   ART 

ceremonies,  in  songs  of  battle  or  victory,  and  in 
temple  rites  and  cults  and  other  religious  perform- 
ances, as  well  as  in  a  variety  of  civic  ceremonies. 
But  in  all  these  cases  the  lyrical  element  which 
directly  responds  to  formal  aesthetic  harmony  is  the 
ruling  element  and  principle.  Still,  in  the  degree  in 
which  such  music  is  blended  with  other  ar£s,  activities, 
and  purposes,  music  as  such  loses  the  artistic  purity 
of  its  nature  and  appeals  to  other  emotions  and 
moods  which  are  not  essentially  aesthetic.  There  is 
no  doubt  that  through  this  admixture  of  poetry  and 
language,  as  well  as  the  combination  with  other  arts, 
musical  expression  gains  in  definiteness  and  indivi- 
duality of  expression,  increases  to  an  almost  infinite 
degree  the  variety  of  shadings  of  emotions,  experi- 
ences, and  even  thoughts,  which  it  becomes  capable 
of  expressing  ;  but  it  is  important  to  bear  in  mind 
that  in  so  far,  as  a  work  of  art,  it  loses  its  aesthetic 
purity.  The  same  applies  to  instrumental  music  in 
which,  in  early  as  well  as  in  later  stages,  musical 
purity  is  to  a  greater  degree  maintained  intact, 
owing  to  the  fact  that  the  tones  are  emitted  instru- 
mentally  and  not  through  the  human  voice,  which 
has  also  to  perform  the  ordinary  function  of  speech. 
Instrumental  music  is  thus  not  aesthetically  weakened 
by  the  intrusion  of  definite  and  accurate  meaning  in 
language  which  appeals  to  other  faculties.  Concerted 
instrumental  or  orchestral  music  has  in  the  course  of 
the  last  few  centuries  evolved  a  number  of  forms  in 
which  the  composition  as  a  whole,  and  each  of  its 
parts,  present  the  most  varied  formal  harmony. 

The  Symphony  is,  perhaps,  the  highest  type, 
subdivided  into  movements  which  are  all  correlated 
to  one  another.  Freedom  and  variety  from  this 
strict  classical  form  are  given  by  the  orchestral  suite, 
intermezzi,  symphonic  poems,  etc.  In  solo-instru- 
ments, as  well  as  in  duets,  trios,  quartets,  sextets, 


INSTRUMENTAL   MUSIC  145 

etc.,  the  sonata  and  the  classical  trio  and  quartet, 
in  the  so-called  Chamber  Music,  follow  the  form 
of  the  symphony  ;  but  here,  again,  a  large  variety  of 
forms  have  been  evolved,  and  respond  to  all  shadings 
of  modern  life  and  feeling. 

Church  music,  which  has  played  so  important  a 
part  in  the  development  of  music,  has  also  established 
a  variety  of  forms  ;  but,  as  is  the  case  with  the 
military  marches,  dances,  etc.,  its  purely  musical 
form  is  subordinated  to  or  modified  by  its  special 
purposes,  character,  and  atmosphere,  and  is  bound 
up  with  special  religious  rites  and  ceremonies. 

Though  instrumental  music,  perhaps  of  all  arts, 
has  been  most  highly  developed  in  modern  times, 
maintaining  in  concerted  instrumental  music  from 
the  solo  to  the  highest  orchestral  forms  of  symphonic 
compositions  the  purity  of  its  formal  aesthetic 
principles,  it  too  is  often  blended  with  vocal  music, 
and  both  together  with  scenic  effects  and  dramatic 
action  ;  until  there  has  been  evolved  the  whole  world 
of  musical  form,  which  constitutes  one  of  the  most 
considerable  artistic  departments  of  modern  civilised 
life,  and  which  as  far  as  complexity  is  concerned 
culminates  in  the  Wagnerian  music-drama,  to  which 
we  shall  have  to  refer  when  dealing  with  the  drama. 
But  even  in  purely  instrumental  music,  when  lyrical 
or  descriptive  poetry  is  not  introduced,  the  develop- 
ment of  so-called  "  programme  music  "  has  tended 
to  extend  the  sphere  of  musical  expression  and  to  fix 
the  definiteness  of  individual  emotions,  and  even  a 
great  variety  of  experiences  and  thoughts. 

In  spite  of  all  this  development  of  musical  art,  the 
underlying  and  dominant  fact  always  remains  that 
music  itself  and  in  itself  never  was,  and  never  is,  the 
vehicle  for  conveying  definite  objective  perceptions, 
meanings,  and  thoughts.  Its  proper  scope  is  directly 
to  express  by  the  harmony  of  tones  the  complete 
ii 


146  ESTHETICS,   ART 

harmony  of  form  which  through  these  conveys  corre- 
sponding aesthetic  pleasure  to  the  senses  and  responds 
to  the  emotions  and  moods,  which  crave  for  and  are 
satisfied  by  such  harmony.  In  itself  it  thus  always 
remains  the  purest  of  arts. 

THE  ART  OF  ORNAMENTATION  OR  DECORATION 

If  we  now  leave  the  art  conveyed  through  the  organs 
of  hearing  and  the  harmonious  succession  of  impres- 
sions in  time,  and  turn  to  the  arts  appealing  to  the 
sense  of  sight  and  touch  in  space,  the  purest  form  of 
such  artistic  expression  is  to  be  found  in  what  we  call 
ornamentative  or  decorative  art.  This  arises  out  of  the 
fundamental  principle  of  symmetry,  proportion  and 
harmony  of  form,  which,  as  we  have  seen  from  the 
beginning  of  our  inquiry  into  the  nature  of  the 
human  senses,  is  elementary  and  fundamental  in  the 
human  mind.  In  the  creative  stage  of  this  ornamen- 
tative activity  of  man,  in  contradistinction  to  the 
merely  selective  phase,  we  find  that  in  the  earliest 
activities  of  primitive  man,  as  well  as  in  savage  and 
infantile  life,  man  endeavours  by  his  handiwork  to 
reproduce  those  simple  symmetrical  forms  by  design 
in  modelling,  scratching  or  incising,  drawing  or 
painting,  and  every  other  method  of  fashioning  the 
forms  which  by  their  symmetry  and  regularity 
appeal  to  his  aesthetic  instinct. 

In  the  purely  selective  stage  man  was  simply 
moved  by  the  desire  for  harmonious  form  in  choosing 
a  symmetrical  object.  But  his  creative  decorative 
work  generally  finds  its  scope  on  some  article  of  use 
which  was  primarily  produced  for  some  other  purpose 
in  his  life,  namely,  utility,  ritual,  or  other  motives. 
Still,  innumerable  objects  abound  in  all  times  in  which 
the  activity  is  in  no  way  related  to  any  further  purpose, 
and  in  the  earliest  work  of  the  modeller  of  clay,  the 


EARLIEST   DECORATIVE   ART  147 

worker  in  stone  or  metal,  and  the  "  graphic  "  artist 
there  is  no  ulterior  purpose  than  the  satisfaction  of 
such  design.  He  merely  fashions  in  these  materials 
objects  of  decoration  because  of  their  regularity, 
symmetry,  and  variety  of  form,  and  he  scratches  or 
incises  on  any  empty  spaces  geometrical  patterns, 
simple  in  their  rudeness,  or  complicated  in  their 
elaborateness,  to  satisfy  this  craving  for  form.  These 
decorative  activities  are  in  no  way  intended  to  possess 
any  further  "  meaning  "  to  be  apprehended  by  the 
spectator  and  for  such  purpose  of  apprehension  and 
understanding.  My  own  conclusions  on  the  evidence 
of  early  prehistoric  finds  have  been  confirmed  to  me 
by  the  best  specialist  authorities  among  prehistoric 
archaeologists  and  anthropologists  (such  as  Abbe* 
Breuil)  that  purely  geometrical  ornament  precedes 
naturalistic  ornament  in  the  work  of  prehistoric  man. 
This  in  no  way  precludes  the  fact  that  the  Palaeo- 
lithic incisions  and  drawings  on  bone  and  other 
materials,  reproducing  with  such  astounding  skill  and 
truth  to  nature  animals  (reindeers,  horses,  etc.)  and 
other  subjects  in  advanced  freedom  and  naturalism, 
are  succeeded  by  designs  of  later  periods  in  which  the 
freedom  and  naturalism  of  reproduction  are  lost,  and 
the  process  of  "  conventionalism  "  more  and  more 
tends  towards  pure  geometrical  pattern,  marking 
degeneration  of  art,  as  it  may  also  mark  degeneration 
in  the  life  and  thought  and  civilisation  of  the  later 
peoples.  I  am  myself  inclined  to  believe  that  these 
remarkable  instances  of  truthful  and  free  naturalism 
in  some  Palaeolithic  periods,  which  stand  out  in  such 
astonishing  superiority  of  technical  skill  over  the 
work  of  subsequent  ages,  illustrate  a  high  develop- 
ment in  the  comparative  civilisation  of  these  early 
prehistoric  periods  and  thus  presume  a  long  series 
of  evolutionary  periods  preceding  them,  as  they  may 
mark  the  end  and  not  the  beginning  of  an  evolutionary 


148  AESTHETICS,   ART 

upward  wave.  It  must  also  be  remembered  (as  I 
have  already  anticipated  in  the  First  Part)  that  the 
purely  decorative  designs  are  not  only  found  anterior 
to  the  naturalistic  drawings  and  incisions,  but  that 
they  are  always  found  accompanying  those  latter 
designs,  and,  moreover,  that  the  natural  tendency  of 
the  excavator  and  archaeologist  is  to  overlook  such 
simple  work,  owing  to  the  impressiveness  of  the  less 
numerous  remarkable  specimens  of  advanced  art, 
thus  distorting  the  actual  proportion  and  dominance 
of  the  one  form  over  the  other. 

Nevertheless,  the  fact  remains  that  purely  decora- 
tive work  is  generally  applied  to  articles  of  use, 
implements  of  peace  and  war,  which  are  fashioned  to 
serve  other  purposes,  not  purely  artistic,  and  to 
satisfy  utility  and  not  beauty.  But  even  so,  it  must 
never  be  forgotten,  and  cannot  be  repeated  too  often, 
that  the  quality  of  "  utility  "  itself  in  any  object 
created  by  man  must  ultimately  be  reduced  to  what 
might  be  called  appropriateness,  that  is,  to  the 
principle  of  harmony,  which  can  be  finally  tested  in 
an  intelligent  being  like  man  only  by  its  response  to 
the  aesthetic  instincts  and  emotions.  Still  we  are 
bound  to  realise  that  such  objects  as  a  whole  were 
definitely  meant  and  created  for  their  utility,  and 
not  for  an  artistic  or  decorative  purpose.  But,  in 
contemplating  them,  their  form  may  be  such  in  their 
perfect  construction  and  elaboration  that  through 
the  sensations  of  eye  and  touch  they  please  and 
appeal  to  the  aesthetic  sense.  We  have  already  noted 
how,  in  the  manufacture  of  the  most  highly  developed 
modern  industries  in  this  practical  and  commercial 
age,  practically  all  articles  of  use  and  mechanism 
have  a  large  portion  of  work  put  into  them  to 
assure  their  perfect  design  and  elaboration  and 
their  attractiveness  in  the  eyes  of  the  purchaser. 
However,  apart  from  the  form  of  such  objects  of 


APPROPRIATE    SPACES    FOR   ORNAMENT    149 

use,  taken  as  a  whole,  the  spaces  and  surface  of 
these  objects  become  the  neutral  field  for  "  decora- 
tion "  —namely,  the  groundwork  upon  which  the 
decorative  artist  can  more  fully,  and  (in  the  best 
work)  in  harmony  with  the  form  and  purpose  of  the 
object  as  a  whole,  create  those  ornamentations  which 
exclusively  appeal  to  the  aesthetic  sense  and  satisfy 
man's  artistic,  and  not  his  practical  or  mechanical, 
desires.  These  parts  and  spaces  thus  become  the 
spheres  for  pure  ornamentation.  This  applies  too, 
in  the  first  instance,  to  all  objects  of  ornament  for 
the  person  of  man  himself,  for  his  home  and  surround- 
ings, to  all  his  articles  of  daily  use.  The  work  of  the 
ceramist,  the  worker  in  wood  and  in  metal,  the  weaver 
of  textiles,  the  armourer,  the  builder,  the  milliner, 
etc.,  in  some  cases,  as  notably  in  weaving,  in  basket- 
making,  etc.,  the  actual  production  of  the  article,  the 
process  itself,  predemands  a  regular  and  symmetrical 
manipulation  and  construction  which  itself  is  one  of 
geometrical  design  ;  so  that  the  very  structure  and 
existence  of  the  body  is  thus  based  on  regularity  of 
design.  The  same  we  shall  see  applied  to  all  forms 
of  architecture.  But  in  most  cases  the  decorative 
ornamentation  is  the  direct  and  conscious  aim  in  the 
work  of  the  artist  who  uses  the  spaces  as  purely 
neutral  grounds  ;  though,  as  we  shall  see,  such  spaces 
as  a  whole  and  their  relation  to  the  surrounding  parts 
of  the  object  decorated  may,  and  ought  to  have,  their 
influence  on  the  ornament  and  its  composition.  Such 
designs  are  in  the  first  instance  devoid  of  all  meaning, 
and  consist  merely  of  the  collocation  of  forms  and  lines 
in  harmonious  sequence  and  proportion  which  please 
the  eye.  Straight  lines,  parallel  or  regularly  inter- 
secting or  intertwining  circles  or  curves  lead  to  such 
familiar  forms  as  the  zigzag,  the  meander  pattern, 
the  succession  of  circles,  the  parallel  wavy  lines, 
spirals,  etc.  But  soon,  subconsciously,  and  not  by 


150  ESTHETICS,   ART 

deliberate  copying  (on  the  contrary,  out  of  the  sub- 
conscious summary  of  man's  continuous  observation), 
such  regular  and  symmetrical  forms  in  nature,  in 
plants,  flowers,  and  shells,  are  introduced,  until  the 
artist  and  the  spectator  are  struck  by  the  resemblance 
to,  if  not  the  identity  with,  the  natural  forms.  In 
the  next  stage  in  the  evolution  of  these  generalised 
forms  suggesting  nature,  but  not  copied  from  any 
individual  elaborate  instance  of  the  natural  form, 
the  suggestion  of  the  natural  object,  whether  shell, 
plant,  or  flower,  becomes  more  or  less  clearly  or  con- 
sciously indicated.  There  is  then  evolved  the 
"  honeysuckle  "  and  "  anthemion  "  pattern,  so  pre- 
valent in  the  art  of  ancient  Greece  and  throughout  all 
subsequent  art  in  various  modifications,  and  in  the 
decorative  forms  of  Oriental  art,  since  known  as 
Arabesque,  all  of  which,  without  "  meaning  "  or  direct 
imitation,  satisfy  man's  instinct  for  harmony  and 
form,  though  they  may  suggest  various  particular 
forms  in  the  world  of  nature.  These  early  artist- 
decorators  could  rightly,  though  unconsciously,  feel 
that  they  must  not  aim  at  reproducing  accurately, 
"  photographically,"  the  individual  plant  or  flower, 
but  that  they  must  subordinate  form  entirely  to  the 
decorative  composition  of  lines  and  masses  in  their 
inter-relation  to  the  complete  satisfaction  of  the 
aesthetic,  and  not  of  the  mimetic  or  imitative  or 
cognitive  or  naturalistic  interest  of  man's  senses  and 
emotions.  In  the  further  development  of  decorative 
art,  especially  in  some  forms  of  Oriental  art — Persian, 
Indian,  Arab,  Hispano  -  Mauresque,  Byzantine — 
and  in  some  phases  of  Gothic  art,  the  decorator  so 
far  delighted  in  his  dexterity  as  a  draughtsman  or 
as  a  sculptor  that  he  would  reproduce  in  detail, 
with  most  perfect  precision,  actual  and  elaborately 
beautiful  forms  from  the  life  of  plants,  flowers,  and 
animals,  We  need  not  regret  this.  But  we  must 


ORNAMENT   DEVOID  OF   "MEANING"      151 

remember  that  these  ornaments  were  not  fashioned 
to  give  us  information  about  plant  or  animal  life  ; 
but  to  please  us  by  the  lines  and  forms  ;  and,  further- 
more, that  these  individual  and  highly  finished 
reproductions  of  natural  elements  formed  but  a  part 
of  the  whole  scheme  of  decoration,  be  it  in  a  capital, 
or  in  an  elaborate  frieze  of  a  harmoniously  constructed 
building,  or  in  the  filling  of  definite  spaces  with 
harmonious  lines  and  forms  in  vases,  shields,  sword- 
blades,  and  other  articles  of  use. 

In  course  of  time,  even  the  human  figure,  singly 
and  in  groups,  reproducing  or  suggesting  definite 
incidents  and  scenes,  was  also  introduced  into  more 
elaborate  forms  of  ornamentation.  But  these  again 
were  entirely  subordinated  to  the  all-predominating 
object  of  harmonious  decoration  rather  than  to  the 
delineation  and  convincing  reproduction  of  the 
human  figure  or  of  incidents  and  scenes.  It  is  here 
that  the  ancient  Greeks,  more  than  any  other  people, 
developed  the  decorative  principle  of  art  in  the  plastic 
or  graphic  reproduction  of  scenes.  On  the  other 
hand,  in  Oriental  and  Egyptian  art  the  primary 
motive  and  origin  of  sculptured,  drawn,  or  painted 
bands  with  animals  and  human  figures,  was  rather 
based  on  the  mimetic  and  cognitive  than  on  the 
harmonious  and  aesthetic  interest.  They  all  partake 
of  what  again  must  be  termed  the  pictographic  or 
narrative  character.  They  were  primarily  and,  above 
all,  meant  to  convey  and  to  record  incidents  and 
scenes,  generally  in  the  history  of  one  of  the  Pharaohs 
or  other  monarchs,  and  the  aesthetic  and  formative 
aim  was  subordinated  to  this  principal  object.  How- 
ever highly  developed  in  artistic  skill  they  were,  as 
a  form  of  "  picture-writing,"  no  doubt  raised  far 
beyond  the  earliest  pictographs  or  hieroglyphic 
symbols,  they  were  still  of  the  nature  of  such  picto- 
graphs. With  the  early  Greek  artists  a  new  and  most 


152  ESTHETICS,   ART 

important  principle  of  art  is  introduced,  and  its 
successive  manifestations  lead  to  the  highest  develop- 
ment of  complex  decorative  art.  Even  in  some  forms 
of  Minoan  and  Mycenaean  art,  it  will  be  seen  how  the 
endless  succession  of  animal  and  human  figures,  which 
is  meant  to  show  the  succession  of  events  and  human 
actions  in  time,  following  one  another  like  a  record 
in  speech  or  writing  in  Egyptian  and  Oriental  art,  is 
replaced  by  the  central  principle  of  all  art  which  we 
call  "  composition."  This  means  nothing  more  nor 
less  than  the  application  of  the  laws  of  formal  sym- 
metry and  harmony  in  order  to  appeal  directly  and 
completely  to  the  harmonistic  or  aesthetic  instinct, 
ending  in  the  highest  artistic  appreciativeness.  The 
main  outline  of  any  given  scene  does  not  naturally 
go  on  indefinitely  impressing  succession  in  time,  but 
is  rounded  off  and  completed,  in  one  most  important 
central  figure  or  incident,  leading,  if  not  forcing,  the 
eye  of  the  spectator  to  concentrate  within  the  out- 
lying symmetry  and  giving  organic  inter-relation 
of  form  to  the  composition  as  a  whole.  This  can 
be  fully  appreciated  by  comparing,  to  take  one  in- 
stance, the  wild  bull-catching  scene  on  the  gold  cups 
from  Vaphio  with  any  Egyptian,  Assyrian,  or  other 
Oriental  scenes,  of  which  there  are  innumerable 
instances.  Whereas  the  latter  give  a  long  succession 
of  figures  following  one  another,  without  a  definite 
composition  in  space,  the  scene  on  the  Vaphio  cup, 
in  which  the  wild  bull  is  caught  in  a  large  net, 
by  the  device  of  the  marked  semicircular  line  of 
the  net  in  the  centre  with  the  figures  on  either  side 
symmetrically  turned  towards  the  centre,  forms  a 
complete  decorative  and  harmonious  unit.  The 
Hellenic  artist  has  thus  carried  the  earliest  linear 
geometrical  decoration  one  step  further  in  emphasis- 
ing this  principle  of  pure  decorative  art  by  composing 
each  scene  within  the  limited  space  of  the  object  of 


"COMPOSITION"   IN    DECORATION        153 

use,   and   then   in   giving  harmonious   unity   to   the 
scene. 

The  front  and  back  of  the  body  of  a  vase,  its  neck, 
its  handles,  its  foot,  all  give  distinct  though  different 
opportunities  for  decorative  artistry  and  for  the 
application  of  purely  artistic  principles  ;  and  it  is 
by  these  principles  of  "  composition,"  produced  by  the 
welding  of  the  two  spheres  of  human  activity — that 
of  the  artist  and  that  of  the  craftsman,  the  potter, 
metal-worker,  joiner,  stonemason,  and  builder — that 
decorative  art,  without  losing  its  own  artistic  prin- 
ciples and  aesthetic  motives,  is  carried  a  considerable 
step  forward  in  the  evolution  of  its  creative  powers 
responding  to  the  growth  of  varied,  complex,  and 
highly  advanced  life  of  cultured  communities.  This 
influence  of  the  craft  of  building  upon  the  art  of  pure 
decoration,  ultimately  reaching  its  culmination,  the 
combination  and  blending  of  the  two  activities  in 
Architecture,  cannot  be  overrated.  It  is  here  that 
Iktinos  co-operates  with  Pheidias,  and  presents  to 
him,  as  earlier  Greek  artists  did  for  earlier  Greek 
sculptors,  a  new  sphere  for  the  sculptor  to  work  in, 
the  sphere  of  decoration,  setting  to  him  most  com- 
plicated and  difficult  tasks  in  the  adaptation  of 
decorative  composition  in  pediments,  metopes,  and 
friezes  to  the  structural  unity  of  a  great  building, 
which  not  only  responded  to  the  definite  purpose  for 
which  the  edifice  was  erected,  but  also  satisfied 
aesthetic  harmony  in  its  perfect  lines  and  proportion 
as  a  whole.  It  is  thus  in  the  blending  of  the  crafts- 
man and  builder  with  the  artist  that  the  work  of  the 
"  decorator  "  in  the  full  sense  of  that  term  is  evolved. 
But  let  no  one  conclude  from  this  historical  fact  that 
the  craftsman  and  the  builder  by  themselves  (merely 
following  the  primary  impulse  to  create  an  object 
of  use)  could  ever  produce  a  work  of  art ;  and  that 
the  principles  of  such  use  by  themselves  did  in  the 


154  .ESTHETICS,   ART 

past,  and  ought  in  the  present  and  the  future,  unaided 
to  produce  the  principles  of  pure  artistic  decoration 
and  to  guide  and  inspire  the  decorative  artist. 

Such  a  view  has  led  to  over-generalisations  and 
fallacies  emanating  from  practising  artists  and  crafts- 
men, as  well  as  from  aesthetic  critics  and  theorists  in 
our  own  days.  An  attempt  is  constantly  being  made 
to  reduce  the  principles  of  decoration  to  the  principles 
of  "  structure  and  use  "  ;  and  it  is  maintained  that 
the  fundamental  principle  of  all  decoration  is  nothing 
more  than  right  construction.  You  may  raise  con- 
struction and  use  to  their  highest  power,  but  you  will 
never  thereby  alone  produce  a  work  of  art.  They  may 
appeal  to,  and  strengthen,  artistic  perceptions,  instincts 
and  feelings,  but  they  cannot  by  themselves  fully  satisfy 
the  aesthetic  instinct.  In  many  cases  the  mechanical 
and  utilitarian  attitude  of  mind  to  which  they  corre- 
spond may  even  be  in  direct  contrast,  if  not  antagon- 
ism, to  the  artistic  feelings.  On  the  other  hand,  the 
history  of  this  natural  exaggeration  and  over-generali- 
sation does  illustrate  one  essential  requisite  in  perfect 
decoration.  In  modern  times  the  theory  of  aestheti- 
cism,  craftsmen  and  architects,  which  I  am  combating, 
arose  out  of  a  well-founded  reaction  against  the  vulgar 
degeneration  of  decorative  art  not  very  long  ago, 
when  inept  and  grotesque  perversion  of  ordinary 
meanings  and  redundancy  of  blatant  ornamentation 
(frequently  in  sham  materials)  filled  all  our  buildings 
and  our  ornamented  implements,  corresponding  to 
vulgar,  blatant,  and  showy  manifestations  in  other 
departments  of  our  social  life,  and  promoted  by  the 
incursion  of  manufacture  by  mass,  which  is  inevitably 
characterised  by  mechanical  sameness  and  generally 
works  in  tawdry,  if  not  sham,  materials,  instead  of 
honest,  beautiful,  sincere  and  painstaking  handiwork 
inspired  by  truly  artistic  principles  and  aims.  The 
reaction  against  the  tendencies  of  this  period  of 


DECORATION   AND   CONSTRUCTION        155 

decorative  work  has  proved  very  useful  and  has,  in 
many  cases,  counteracted  some  of  the  besetting  sins 
of  that  misguided  phase.  It  has  drawn  the  attention 
of  the  public  as  well  as  of  the  artistic  world  to  a 
most  important  aspect  of  the  general  principle  of  all 
art  as  applied  to  decoration,  namely,  harmony 
between  the  idea  and  execution,  between  the  form 
and  material,  between  the  purpose  of  the  work 
decorated  and  the  decoration  itself.  It  has  furnished, 
and  furnishes  us  now,  with  the  most  important 
negative  principle  of  true  decoration,  namely,  that, 
to  produce  the  supreme  harmony  between  form  and 
matter,  there  must  be  no  clash  or  contradiction 
between  the  use  of  the  object  decorated,  or  the 
material  in  which  the  decorative  forms  are  to  be 
worked,  and  the  principles  of  construction  out  of  which 
the  object  to  be  decorated  is  produced.  In  spite  of 
the  beauty,  for  instance,  of  even  certain  Gobelins  or 
Aubusson  tapestries  and  textiles,  it  may  be  doubtful 
whether  it  is  right  that  the  seat  of  a  chair,  or  cover  of 
a  footstool,  should  be  decorated  with  a  beautiful 
woman's  face  or  a  delicate  flower,  upon  which  we  sit 
or  place  our  feet.  Nevertheless,  in  such  cases  it  may 
be  maintained  that,  when  the  compositions  on  the 
chair  and  on  the  footstool  are  complete  in  themselves 
and  please  the  eye  by  the  harmony  of  their  lines, 
forms,  figures,  as  well  as  of  colour  and  tone,  nobody 
is  reminded  or  need  be  reminded  of  the  use  which 
these  objects  are  to  serve,  and  there  is  no  reason  why, 
when  they  strike  the  eye,  the  aesthetic  pleasure  they 
would  naturally  produce  should  be  compromised  by 
the  circumstance  that  the  textiles  themselves  are  used 
to  cover  chairs  and  footstools.  Nor  are  all  subjects 
and  forms  of  decoration  appropriate  to  our  ordinary 
articles  of  use.  The  handle  of  an  axe  for  chopping 
wood,  a  frying-pan,  a  pocket-handkerchief,  a  lady's 
parasol,  are  not  suited  to  subjects  and  scenes  from 


156  ESTHETICS,   ART 

life.  It  is  also  absurd  to  use  costly  material  out  of 
place,  as  it  is  undoubtedly  inept  to  apply  a  pattern 
appropriate  for  lace  or  the  most  delicate  metal-work 
to  a  common  wooden  chest,  a  terra-cotta  vase,  or 
the  panel  of  a  motor-car.  There  is  no  doubt  that 
such  radical  and  gross  incongruities  and  absurdities 
mar  the  artistic  harmony  of  any  form  of  decoration, 
as  there  can  also  be  no  doubt  that  the  decorator's 
success  in  the  realisation  of  harmony  in  the  design 
and  subject-matter  of  the  decorative  forms  and 
scenes  represented  and  the  material  in  which  they 
are  expressed  and  the  use  and  structure  of  the  objects 
they  are  to  embellish,  must  be  complete.  It  is  also 
true  that  the  very  term  "  redundancy,"  or  "  over- 
decoration,"  implies  bad  taste,  that  it  counteracts 
the  harmony  of  the  whole. 

But  it  is  gross  exaggeration  to  maintain  that  a 
decorative  form  is  inseparably  wedded  to  one 
definite  material,  and  that  out  of  the  intrinsic  nature 
of  the  materials  and  the  technique  in  handling  them 
all  decorative  forms  are  wholly  evolved.  That  is 
untrue  to  the  facts  of  history,  as  it  is  to  aesthetic 
theory.  All  the  noted  Greek  forms  of  decoration, 
from  the  zigzag  and  wave  pattern  and  meander  to  the 
most  elaborate  anthemia  and  floral  patterns  of  the 
ancient  world,  were  used  indifferently  in  the  best 
periods,  and  by  the  best  artists  in  vases  of  terra- 
cotta, of  bronze,  silver  and  gold,  and  of  marble ;  in 
stone-work,  metal-work,  and  woodwork  ;  in  drawing 
and  in  painting — irrespective  of  the  nature  of  the 
material,  or  of  the  technique,  or  of  the  purpose  of 
the  decorated  object.  Those  patterns  were  put  in 
the  right  place  and  harmonised  in  line  and  colour 
with  the  objects,  and  were  given  the  right  proportion, 
so  as  not  to  produce  a  redundant,  gaudy  appearance 
in  the  work  as  a  whole,  or  too  meagrely  or  thinly  to 
produce  a  simplicity  out  of  place,  which,  it  must 


"SIMPLICITY"   AND   OSTENTATION        157 

always  be  remembered,  is  a  form  of  meanness  and 
vulgarity  as  marked  as  is  ostentatious  splendour. 
A  drawing-room  decorated  like  even  the  most  beauti- 
ful cottage  kitchen,  and  a  kitchen  with  precious 
marbles  and  gilded  ornaments  of  a  ball-room,  are  as 
vulgar  and  as  absurd,  as  insincere  and  as  untrue,  as 
would  be  the  appearance  of  a  cricketer  in  evening 
dress  with  white  tie,  or  a  dancer  in  a  ball-room  in 
flannels.  The  highly  ornamented  ball-room  is  a 
supreme  object  of  beauty  and  gives  the  greatest 
opportunity  for  the  decorator's  genuine  craft.  The 
object  of  the  decorator  will  always  be  to  appeal, 
through  the  senses,  to  the  artistic  emotions  of  a 
receptive  spectator  ;  and  no  amount  of  use,  fitness, 
appropriateness,  constructive  efficiency,  by  themselves, 
without  artistic  beauty,  will  produce  this  aesthetic 
effect. 

We  have  thus  traced  the  advance  of  ornamentation 
as  a  pure  art,  appealing  to,  and  satisfying,  the 
aesthetic  instinct  directly  and  completely  by  form, 
proportion  and  harmony,  to  its  more  complex  mani- 
festations in  which  it  is  mixed  with  objects  and 
elements  belonging  to  other  departments  of  human 
life  and  human  creativeness,  until  it  can  no  longer 
be  called  pure  art  in  the  sense  in  which  we  are  using 
that  term.  Still  the  fact  remains,  that,  with  music 
in  the  world  of  sound  and  ornamentation  in  space, 
through  the  direct  activity  of  the  artist  who  fashions 
objects  to  satisfy  aesthetic  needs,  works  are  created 
which  are  a  direct  expression  of  pure  art. 


B.  ARCHITECTURE 

We  must  now  turn  to  those  numerous  and  most 
important  forms  of  creative  art  which  are  no  longer 
the  pure  expression  of  aesthetic  needs  and  principles, 
but,  through  the  development  and  complexity  of 


158  ESTHETICS,   ART 

civilised  life,  have  become  established  departments 
of  art-work  and  are  mixed  in  character. 

Architecture,  in  contradistinction,  on  the  one  hand, 
to  building  and,  on  the  other  hand,  to  decoration, 
is  the  foremost  type  of  such  mixed  art.  In  fact,  the 
architect,  though  historically  he  may  have  grown 
and  developed  out  of  the  builder,  may  also  have 
developed  out  of  the  ornamenter.  He  does  not  belong 
wholly  and  only  to  the  one  class  or  the  other  ;  but 
the  distinctive  activities  and  aims  of  the  architect 
as  an  artist  are  to  be  found  in  the  complete  and 
harmonious  blending  of  the  two.  The  builder,  as 
such,  is  a  pure  craftsman,  as  much  as  is  the  stone- 
mason, the  joiner  or  engineer.  The  works  which 
in  the  earliest  times  he  produces  aim,  in  the  first 
instance,  at  utility  and  not  at  beauty  ;  they  partake 
more  of  the  nature  of  the  mechanical  than  of  the 
artistic,  and  the  whole  of  his  functions  belong  more 
directly  to  the  department  of  pragmatics  than  of 
aesthetics.  But  so  soon  as  the  aesthetic  instinct  and 
need  which  supply  the  motive-power  to  the  activity 
and  creativeness  of  the  ornamenter  become  active 
in  the  builder,  they  lead  to  the  blending  of  these  two 
impulses  and  found  a  new  activity.  Thus  is  produced 
the  complex  art  of  Architecture — neither  wholly  the 
work  of  the  builder  nor  wholly  that  of  the  ornamenter. 
But,  as  soon  as  the  builder  becomes  an  architect,  he 
becomes  an  artist  ;  and,  however  necessary  it  may 
be  for  him  to  satisfy  the  technical  and,  in  great  part, 
mechanical  principles  of  construction  in  various 
materials,  and  as  a  practical  worker  to  fulfil  the 
definite  purpose  of  use  prescribed  by  the  form  of 
building  he  constructs,  his  function  as  an  architectural 
artist  must  always  be  to  satisfy  directly  the  need  for 
harmony,  the  aesthetic  instinct  of  man.  He  must 
create  a  thing  of  beauty.  No  amount  of  mechanical 
ingenuity  or  knowledge,  no  regard  for  the  structural 


THE   ARCHITECT   MUST   BE   ARTIST       159 

nature  and  capabilities  of  the  materials  with  which 
he  deals,  no  justness  and  competence  in  fulfilling  the 
useful  purposes  of  the  building  he  erects,  will  of  them- 
selves make  of  him  the  true  artist  whom  we  call  an 
architect.  These  are  only  the  qualifications  of  a 
craftsman  and  an  engineer.  As  an  artist,  he  must 
compose  into  perfect  harmony  and  unity  of  design 
the  several  i  parts  of  the  building,  elaborate  each 
portion  and  member  of  this  constructed  unit,  so  that 
they  fully  respond  to  the  aesthetic  feeling  for  form. 
He  must  further  evolve  those  elements  of  ornamenta- 
tion which  belong  to  the  sister  graphic  or  plastic 
arts  and  emphasise  and  intensify  his  architectural 
construction,  not  merely  as  an  object  of  use,  but  as 
a  work  of  art,  to  satisfy  the  aesthetic  feelings  of  all 
who  contemplate  and  use  the  building.  But  with 
the  advance  of  complex  civilised  life  and  the  innumer- 
able varieties  of  its  needs,  individual  and  collective, 
and  with  the  increase  of  the  number  of  materials  that 
are  used,  the  demands  upon  the  ideal  architect,  on 
the  intellectual,  mechanical  and  even  scientific 
side  (in  contradistinction  to  the  more  imaginative  and 
emotional  qualities  of  the  artist),  become  more 
exacting  and  intrusive  in  his  training  and  in  his 
activities.  In  modern  architecture  the  necessity  of 
providing  for  the  housing  of  all  classes,  with  the  need 
of  many  urgent  considerations,  and  beyond  the 
domestic  sphere,  in  the  world  of  business — from  work- 
shop to  factory,  from  the  shop  to  the  great  depart- 
ment "store"— and  in  all  public  buildings,  from 
theatres,  cinematograph  halls,  churches,  clubs,  work- 
ing-men's institutes,  and  Government  buildings — all 
these  practical  needs  and  all  the  physical  means  of 
responding  to  them  become  still  more  confusingly 
complicated  by  the  use  of  quite  new  materials, 
demanding  new  forms  of  construction  and  treatment 
— through  iron  and  steel  to  "  reinforced  concrete  " — 


160  ESTHETICS,   ART 

which  must  be  added  to  all  the  earlier  materials  which 
had  evolved  their  own  characteristic  treatment  and 
style.  All  these  preliminary,  though  essential, 
demands  urgently  clamouring  for  due  consideration 
and  elaboration,  require  the  modern  architect  to  be 
not  only  a  builder,  but  even  a  mechanical  and  civil 
engineer.  Nevertheless,  in  order  to  be  an  architect— 
a  full  and  adequate  representative  of  the  noble  art- 
he  must  possess,  as  a  primary  force  of  his  artistic 
creativeness,  that  all-pervading  sense  and  love  of 
form  in  harmony  which  in  more  direct  and  pre- 
dominating strength  drives  the  musician  and  the 
decorator,  the  sculptor,  painter  and  poet,  to  produce 
the  works  of  their  respective  arts. 

It  will  thus  be  seen  how  in  the  making  of  the  ideal 
architect  a  large  number  of  separate  qualities  must 
be  combined  in  the  personality  of  the  artist.  Not 
only  the  peculiar  technical  and  artistic  qualifications, 
to  which  reference  has  been  made,  are  required, 
including  a  thorough  scientific  education  in  higher 
mathematics  and  physics  for  the  construction  of  the 
building  as  a  whole  and  in  all  its  details  (the  pro- 
perties of  the  materials,  stress,  strain,  etc.)  ;  but 
also  complete  mastery  of  draughtsmanship,  and, 
above  all,  that  imaginative  visual  capacity  to  see  all 
the  forms  with  which  he  deals  architecturally,  as  the 
sculptor  and  the  painter  spontaneously  visualise  all 
forms  in  their  distinctively  sculpturesque  or  picturesque 
nature.  This  does  emphatically  not  only  apply  to 
the  outer  appearance,  the  elevation  of  a  building  ; 
but  implies  that  the  internal  spaces,  with  which  he 
has  to  deal,  present  a  harmonious  and  fully  organised 
plan — the  ground-plan — and  that  his  imagination 
naturally  presents  all  spaces  in  this  form,  which  the 
untrained  layman  is  hardly  ever  able  to  do  either  by 
natural  predisposition  or  by  training. 

Beyond  these  qualifications  his  faculties  and  his 


ARTS   OF   MEANING  161 

work  must  not  be  limited  to  the  single  building  by 
itself,  but  in  its  relation  to  its  surroundings,  whether 
in  town  or  country.  This  wider  harmony  between 
the  buildings  to  one  another  in  civic  architecture  and 
to  the  street  or  district  as  a  whole — the  subordination 
of  the  buildings  to  a  wider  artistic  organisation 
—is  conveyed  by  the  modern  term  "  town-planning." 
The  nature  of  this  important  architectural  quality 
can  best  be  illustrated  by  the  comparative  neglect 
of  such  principles  in  the  case  of  New  York  as  an 
architectural  unit  compared  with  Paris.  It  becomes 
more  and  more  urgent  that  civic  authorities  should, 
under  competent  expert  advice,  consider  these  wider 
artistic  needs. 

In  the  country  the  architect  must  also  consider 
the  building  in  relation  to  its  natural  rural  setting. 
The  artistic  organism  must  here  also  harmonise  with 
its  environment.  The  ideal  architect  must  therefore 
also  be  a  competent  "  landscape  gardener."  l 

One  fact,  however,  remains  paramount  within  all 
the  technical  requisites  of  the  architect  as  a  builder, 
namely,  that  he  must  be  essentially  an  artist  possess- 
ing all  the  natural  powers  and  the  training  of  the 
artist,  especially  in  the  Pure  Art  of  Ornamentation. 

C.  THE  ARTS  OF  "  MEANING  " 

(SCULPTURE,  PAINTING,  THE  LITERARY  AND  DRAMATIC  ARTS,  Music, 
THE  ART  OF  LIVING) 

GENERAL  PRINCIPLES 

We  have  already  distinguished  "  Pure  "  Art  from 
what  might,  perhaps,  be  called  "  Applied  "  Art — if 
we  were  to  take  the  analogy  between  Pure  and 

1  I  recall  a  striking  phrase  of  my  friend,   the  late  Charles  Eliot 
Norton,  when  visiting  him  in  his  picturesque  country  house  at  Ash- 
field,  Massachusetts.     I  had  asked  him  what  he  was  then  occupied  in 
doing.     "  Oh,"  he  said,  "  I  am  landscape-painting  with  an  axe." 
12 


162  AESTHETICS,    ART 

Applied  Mathematics,  Physics  and  Science  in  general. 
The  further  development  of  the  art  of  ornamentation 
has  already  shown  us  how  decorative  art  loses  its 
"  purity  "  as  it  progresses  ;  and  how,  in  architecture, 
elements  alien  to  the  purely  aesthetic  aims  are  intro- 
duced and  blended  in  the  development  of  the  art  of 
building.  Practically  all  the  more  advanced  arts 
evolved  by  civilised  man  in  the  course  of  ages  must 
surrender  their  purity  of  aesthetic  function  with 
the  advance  of  intelligence  and  thought,  of  man's 
spiritual  and  mental  activities,  which  dominate  all 
his  conscious  life.  His  senses  and  perceptions,  his 
feelings  and  thoughts,  his  imagination,  his  creative- 
ness  in  every  direction,  are  modified  and  guided  by 
his  intelligence,  in  accordance  with  his  aspirations  and 
ideals.  It  is  thus,  through  the  channels  of  intelligent 
apprehension,  that  his  further  artistic  desires  and 
creativeness  manifest  themselves.  To  use  a  simple 
term,  the  forms  which  he  puts  into  the  material  of 
artistic  creativeness  must  have  a  meaning ;  and 
it  is  thus  through  the  channels  of  apprehension  and 
understanding  that  his  aesthetic  faculties  are  stimu- 
lated and  his  desire  for  the  harmony  of  art  satisfied. 
Clear  and  accurate  meaning  must  be  as  near  as 
possible  to  the  thing  itself  which  is  to  be  apprehended. 
Apprehension  or  cognition  is  to  be  objective  and  not 
subjective,  independent  of  all  subjective  states,  recep- 
tivities, pleasures,  or  pains,  peace  of  mind,  personal 
admiration  and  all  other  "  affects."  Things  are  to 
be  apprehended  as  they  are.  This  is  the  supreme 
domain  of  human  cognition,  ending  in  truth  and 
leading  to  science. 

But,  as  we  have  seen,  even  in  the  purest  science, 
the  discovery  and  exposition  of  truth  are  ultimately 
based  upon  the  harmonistic  principle,  and  man's 
work  arising  out  of  this  is  in  truth  a  kind  of  art  itself. 
We  have  even  seen  that  the  simplest  full  sense- 


"  SEEING  M  163 

perception  rests  upon  the  harmonistic  principle  ;  it 
is  never  completely  and  purely  objective,  but  is,  from 
one  point  of  view,  a  subjective  activity  of  the  human 
mind.  For  if  we  consider  more  searchingly  what 
happens  when  we  use  our  higher  senses  in  seeing  and 
hearing,  we  shall  be  forced  to  realise  that  these  per- 
ceptions never  consist  of  the  purely  passive  stimulation 
through  the  outer  object  perceived,  a  passive  repro- 
duction of  the  thing  itself  which  stimulates  our  senses  ; 
but  consist  in  great  part  of  an  active,  subjective 
selection,  or  what  we  might  even  venture  to  call  the 
11  composition  "  of  stimuli,  in  which  we  actively  pro- 
ject with  varying  degrees  of  consciousness  (generally 
purely  subconsciously)  our  memory-images  or  our 
associative  imagination.  In  the  act  of  seeing  and 
hearing  we  only  receive  a  part  of  the  attributes  of 
the  outer  object  perceived,  and  we  "  concentrate  " 
upon  one  or  more  of  these  innumerable  attributes, 
we  select  them,  we  compose  them  on  the  lines  of 
11  attention,"  and  on  the  principle  of  harmonistic 
selection.  When  we  "  see  "  a  face  or  a  hand,  when 
we  hear  a  longer  or  shorter  sentence,  or  part  of  it, 
or  a  word,  the  outer  objects  which  stimulate  our 
perceptive  faculties  are  in  each  case  composed  of 
innumerable  attributes.  Our  sensory  organs  of  sight 
and  sound,  by  their  function,  ignore  most  of  these 
attributes  and  select  those  which  by  attention  and 
the  desire  of  apprehension  harmonise  into  the  definite 
"  meaning."  The  ideal  perception  of  an  ideal  being 
would  reproduce  and  grasp  all  the  infinite  attributes 
in  every  object  perceived.  My  meaning  in  this 
seeming  paradox  would  become  clearer  if  we  were 
to  assume  that  the  human  eye  and  the  human  ear 
resembled  the  most  complete  microscope  and  mega- 
phone, as  well  as  telescope  and  telephone,  to  the 
wtb  power — to  an  infinite  degree.  To  leave  for  the 
moment  more  complicated  objects,  such  as  a  face  or 


164  AESTHETICS,   ART 

a  hand,  let  us  take  a  small  portion  of  the  human  skin, 
which  consists  of  all  the  innumerable  visual  attributes 
which  even  any  magnifying-glass  reveals  in  the 
pores,  small  cavities,  among  other  distant  and 
individual  features,  all  of  which  when  we  "  see  "  the 
human  skin  we  either  do  not  see  or  ignore.  The 
same  with  any  composition  of  sounds  or  single  sounds 
and  their  component  parts  and  intervals,  which  we 
do  not  hear  with  the  "  natural  "  ear  unaided  by 
instruments.  In  the  same  way  the  telescope  reveals 
distant  stars  and  planets  that  the  naked  eye  does  not 
see,  and  corresponding  macrophonic  instruments  will 
produce  similar  results  in  sound.  The  same  applies 
to  the  perception  of  succession  in  time  or  movement. 
Thus,  for  instance,  the  invention  of  instantaneous 
photography  has  revealed  to  us  a  more  minute  sub- 
division of  the  innumerable  stages  in  movement 
than  the  naked  eye  habitually  perceived.  It  was  a 
revelation  when  we  were  first  shown  the  several 
component  portions  of  such  continuous  movement 
in  the  "  horse  in  motion."  We  were  thus  led  to 
believe  that  our  previous  visual  picture  of  a  galloping 
horse  as  shown  in  all  graphic  illustrations  in  drawing 
and  painting  was  wrong.  The  result  has  even  been 
that  in  modern  graphic  representation  of  such  move- 
ment a  more  minute  single  instant  in  a  gallop  or  a 
trot  horse  is  chosen  for  the  typical  illustration  of  the 
whole  movement.  This  is  a  mistake.  Our  natural 
eye,  and  the  older  artists  who  followed  its  lead  and 
recorded  its  impressions,  were  right.  They  selected 
and  composed  spontaneously  and  naturally  the 
typical  elements  that  constitute  galloping  or  trotting, 
and  thus  truthfully  represented  the  real  art  of  vision, 
which  in  itself  is  one  of  selection  and  composition. 
Our  natural  vision  is  not  an  individual  instant  of 
photography,  but  always  partakes  of  the  nature  of 
what  we  now  call  a  composite  photograph. 


SENSE-PERCEPTIONS  165 

This  will,  in  the  first  instance,  show  that  our  sense- 
perceptions  never  mean  complete  and  accurate  trans- 
ference of  the  attributes  of  the  object  to  the  subject 
perceiving.  Consider  for  a  moment  what  happens 
when  you  listen  to  any  speech  directed  to  you  in 
command  or  in  conversation.  We  are  addressed  by 
the  words,  "  Please  listen  to  what  I  am  going  to  say 
to  you."  If  a  phonograph  were  to  record  such  a 
quickly  spoken  phrase  it  would  amount  to  a  jumble 
of  sounds  something  like  this,  "  plslsntowimgngt- 
satu  "—or  even  much  less  in  the  majority  of  cases. 
But  even  a  few  of  these  individual  sounds,  stimulating 
the  drum  of  our  ear,  are  elaborated  by  our  organ  of 
hearing  into  a  complete  picture-sound  by  the  pro- 
jection on  our  part,  according  to  definite  principles  of 
meaning  which  we  convey  to  our  own  consciousness. 
The  same  occurs  with  regard  to  sight.  A  mere  part 
or  hint  of  a  familiar  form  is  converted  by  our  inner 
image  into  the  consciousness  of  complete  form. 
Both  in  sight  and  in  sound  we  are  constantly  "  com- 
posing "  on  very  imperfect  actual  suggestions  1  into 
complete  form,  or  we  reduce  the  great  variety  of 
visual  and  audible  objects  which  strike  the  eye  or 
ear  when  we  are  looking  in  a  room  or  at  outside  scenes, 
or  listening  to  sounds,  into  some  unity  by  definite 
concentration  and  isolation  of  phenomena,  into  one 
well-composed  and  clear  image  or  impression  which 
we  apprehend  as  such.  Every  visual  "  scene  "  is 
provided  by  us  with  a  foreground,  middle  distance 
and  background  ;  the  middle  distance  being  the 
point  of  concentration,  while  the  details  of  fore- 
ground and  background,  as  well  as  the  side  views,  are 
relatively  indistinct  and  of  minor  importance  to  the 

1  It  would  be  well  that  those  dealing  with  psychical  phenomena, 
such  as  ghosts  and  apparitions,  should  remain  strictly  conscious  of 
this  "  projecting  "  activity  of  our  senses  on  insufficient  actual  stimu- 
lation from  without. 


166  AESTHETICS,    ART 

central  unity  of  composition.  In  seeing  and  hearing 
we  are  selecting  and  composing  as  artists  do,  con- 
tinuously throughout  our  life,  at  nearly  every  moment 
of  our  conscious  existence. 

Thus,  as  we  have  already  suggested  in  the  previous 
chapter,  science  itself  is  based  upon  selection,  which 
ultimately  follows  the  principles  of  harmony.  Now, 
in  the  "  Arts  of  Meaning,"  the  act  of  apprehension 
and  cognition  —  the  epistemological  activity  —  is 
involved,  as  well  as  in  science  ;  but  the  difference 
between  science  and  these  arts  lies  in  the  position 
which  Form  and  Harmony  hold  in  both  activities. 
In  art  they  are  the  end  and  object  ;  in  science  they 
are  the  means  of  discovery  and  exposition.  In  a 
work  of  art  just  one  form  given  to  the  expression  of 
any  meaning  in  nature  and  in  life  and  thought  is 
essential  to  the  exposition  of  the  matter  or  meaning 
conveyed.  No  other  form  can  take  its  place.  It  is 
essential  to  the  creation  presented  ;  it  is  the  spirit 
which  gives  life  to  the  dead  and  meaningless  matter. 
Rob  the  sense-impression  or  feeling  of  this  and  the 
living  thing  no  longer  exists.  One  form  is  not  essential 
to  the  abstract  truth  itself  conveyed  in  science  ;  it 
can  be  discarded  when  the  truth  is  apprehended  for 
itself,  not  tied  up  with  one  form.  Understanding 
of  truth  might  be  established,  confirmed  and  im- 
parted by  other  means,  by  other  departments  of 
science.  Mathematical  truths  by  means  of  numbers, 
or  algebraic  symbols  in  geometry  or  trigonometry  ; 
physics  and  chemistry,  biology  and  geology,  logic 
and  philosophy,  even  history  and  its  various  aspects 
and  parts — social,  political,  economical — may  inter- 
changeably establish,  prove,  or  confirm,  and  in  turn 
impart,  one  truth  ;  the  form  in  which  this  truth  is 
conveyed  is  a  mere  means  to  the  establishment  of  the 
truth  itself.  Even  one  and  the  same  work  may  at 
times  be  used  and  considered  as  pure  art  or  as  pure 


FORM   ESSENTIAL   TO    ART  167 

science,  according  to  the  concentration  of  attention 
upon  the  form  side  or  the  meaning  side.  The  facts 
in  a  passage  of  Thucydides,  in  so  far  as  it  aims  at 
recording  a  battle  scene  in  the  spirit  of  historical 
science,  might  be  imparted  by  some  other  author  or 
conveyed  by  other  departments  of  historical  study— 
the  topography  of  the  site,  the  archaeology  of  the 
monuments  referring  to  the  battle,  the  epigraphy  of 
the  inscriptions  referring  to  it,  etc.  But  when  this 
passage  is  considered  as  a  work  of  literary  art,  for  the 
style  of  the  author,  for  his  lexis,  the  facts,  the  matter 
itself,  is  literally  "  inspired  "  by  the  spirit  of  form 
into  a  new  living  organism  or  creation,  and  the  form 
becomes  the  essence — no  other  mode  of  expression 
can  replace  it.  We  can  never  consider  the  form  as 
a  mere  means  in  art  and  discard  it  when  the  meaning 
has  been  conveyed  ;  for  in  the  highest  degree  of 
purpose  and  consciousness  in  such  creations  the  form 
is  the  essence. 

Now,  in  the  Arts  of  Meaning  unquestionably  facts 
and  truths  must  be  conveyed  in  artistic  form,  which 
becomes  the  chief  constituent  of  the  work  as  a  whole. 
But  in  the  actual  history  of  such  artistic  work  and  in 
the  theory  and  criticism  of  such  artistic  creativeness, 
the  crucial  point  has  ever  been,  and  will  always 
be,  the  relation  and  proportion  between  these  two 
elements  of  form  and  meaning  which  are  to  be 
organically  fused  into  one.  The  predominance  of 
the  one  over  the  other  will  thus  be  characterised  by 
what  has  been  called  Realism  or  Idealism.  Realism 
will,  above  all,  aim  at  truth,  as  the  corresponding 
forms  of  Idealism  will  aim  at  form.  But  such  one- 
sided, exaggerated  and  pronounced  Realism,  the 
highest  aim  in  the  production  of  which  is  truth,  can 
never  produce  or  attain  to  the  highest  art,  because  the 
work  of  art  then  merely  becomes  a  feeble  and  shadowy 
substitute,  a  makeshift,  for  reality  ;  and  it  would 


168  ESTHETICS,   ART 

attain  its  highest  perfection  when  it  could  deceive 
the  spectator  into  mistaking  such  an  artifact  (for  it 
never  is  a  work  of  art)  for  the  thing  itself — as  certain 
people  are  delighted  when  at  Mme  Tussaud's  they 
find  themselves  addressing  one  of  the  wax  figures  as 
a  living  visitor  or  attendant  and  fondly  believe  that, 
because  they  have  thus  been  tricked,  the  waxwork  is 
the  highest  realisation  of  the  artist's  work.  Yet, 
not  only  in  this  vulgar  form  of  wonder,  mistaken  for 
artistic  admiration,  but  even  with  some  of  the  highest 
representatives  of  art  and  aesthetics,  can  this  under- 
lying fallacy  be  detected. 

We  have  seen  before,  in  dealing  with  the  art  of 
ornamentation,  the  narrative  or  "  pictographic  " 
stage  in  which  the  graphic  arts  are  made  subservient 
to  the  mere  imparting  of  knowledge,  and  these  arts 
are  reduced  to  picture-writing,  a  makeshift  for  the 
imparting  of  information,  and  not  a  work  of  art 
designed  to  satisfy  the  aesthetic  instinct  and  feelings. 
The  same  is  true  of  those  "  arts  of  meaning  "  as  well 
in  which  the  facts  conveyed  ought  merely  to  be  means 
and  units  to  the  establishment  of  a  further  harmony. 
In  so  far  as  they  are  only  designed  to  convey  accurate 
information  they  belong  to  the  domain  of  science  and 
not  of  art.  It  is  therefore  a  complete  misunder- 
standing of  the  nature  of  art  to  maintain  that  it  arises 
out  of  the  mimetic  instinct — the  reproduction  or 
imitation  of  outer  things,  events,  or  actions.  Thus 
Plato,1  who  in  some  of  his  dialogues  (notably  in  the 

1  I  must  make  an  exception  to  my  self-imposed  rule  of  not  discussing 
or  quoting  the  various  views  on  the  subject  I  am  dealing  with  or  in  any 
way  translating  the  expression  of  my  own  convictions  into  the  language 
of  other  thinkers,  by  referring  to  a  very  able  and  suggestive  exposition 
of  the  Platonic  conception  of  art  as  well  as  of  that  of  other  philosophers 
in  a  book  on  The  Theory  of  Beauty,  by  Mr.  E.  F.  Carritt,  of  Oxford.  It 
must  be  remembered  that  Plato  and  Aristotle  at  times  refer  to  art 
from  the  fixed  point  of  view  of  Ethics,  Paedagogics,  and  Politics,  and 
that  in  such  cases  there  is  a  fixed  ethical  or  pedagogical  bias  in  their 
conception  of  Esthetics, 


MIMESIS  169 

Phcedrus)  has  gone  to  the  very  heart  of  the  nature  of 
art,  singularly  contradicts  his  definitions  and  the  true 
principles  there  laid  down  when  (chiefly  in  the  loth 
book  of  the  Republic  and  in  the  Philebus)  he 
ascribes  to  Mimesis  the  fundamental  principle  of 
artistic  creativeness,  and  consequently  assigns  a 
comparatively  low  position  to  art  and  to  the  artist  in 
the  world  of  spiritual  achievement. 

When  Robert  Browning,  in  "  The  Last  Ride 
Together,"  deplores  the  inadequacy  of  art  : 

And  you,  great  sculptor — so,  you  gave 
A  score  of  years  to  Art.  her  slave, 
And  that's  your  Venus,  whence  we  turn 
To  yonder  girl  that  fords  the  burn  ! 

he  comes  dangerously  near  to  ignoring  the  true 
essence  of  art.  It  is  not  the  aesthetic  sense  or  spirit 
which  leads  the  man  to  prefer  the  village  girl  who 
fords  the  burn  to  the  statue  of  Venus  ;  but  his  sen- 
suality. 

A  visit  to  a  session  of  a  Criminal  or  Divorce  Court ; 
a  ball  at  some  social  gathering  ;  eavesdropping  or 
keyhole-peeping  at  a  love-scene  ;  or  the  verbatim 
accounts  of  any  scene  or  incident  of  life  in  any  news- 
paper, would  all  be  a  more  perfect  means  of  appre- 
hending the  truth  of  life  than  any  work  of  poetry  or 
prose,  conveying  the  spirit  and  essence  of  life  in  all 
its  manifestations  in  the  most  harmonious,  thrilling 
and  lofty  forms  of  literary  art.  On  the  other  hand, 
pure  "  Idealism,"  ignoring  all  the  truthful  rendering 
of  objects  and  scenes  from  nature  and  life  in  the 
desire  to  convey  form  in  its  purest  and  absolute 
harmony  (unless  it  is  merely  an  expression  of  the 
pure  art  of  "  ornamentation,"  with  which  we  have 
dealt  before),  can  never  succeed  hi  imparting  ideas, 
which  in  their  harmonious  forms  are  designed  to  stir 
us  to  higher  aesthetic  appreciativeness  and  emotions. 
Moreover,  in  so  far  as  the  meanings  which  are  to  be 


170  AESTHETICS,   ART 

conveyed  produce  inaccurate  or  distorted  images  of 
facts,  objects,  incidents  and  scenes  of  life,  by  their 
very  faulty  description  or  drawing,  they  lead  to 
distorted  perceptions  which,  as  such,  are  inharmonious 
and  counteract,  or  detract  from,  the  ultimate  har- 
mony. Such  inaccuracy  or  untruthfulness  produces 
either  disturbing  or  painful  struggle  in  the  act  of 
mere  apprehension,  or  an  opposition  and  protest 
in  the  mind  of  the  spectator  or  audience,  because 
of  their  untruthfulness.  In  the  reproduction,  for 
instance,  of  the  human  being,  of  landscapes,  animals, 
plants,  buildings,  by  means  of  the  plastic  or  graphic 
arts,  if  these  forms  are  out  of  drawing  or  out  of 
perspective,  or  with  false  keys  of  colour,  then,  in 
so  far  as  they  strike  us  as  false,  and  as  this  untruthful- 
ness  obtrudes  itself  upon  our  attention,  thus  obscuring 
or  weakening  any  other  visual  emotion,  harmony  of 
form  and  colour,  or  general  harmonious  aesthetic 
mood,  the  result  is  cacophony  and  not  harmony  ; 
they  can  convey  no  idea  or  ideal,  they  only  disturb 
or  destroy  the  artistic  expression  itself.  On  the  other 
hand,  it  must  be  remembered  that,  for  purposes  of 
impressing  their  visual  form  in  one  distinct  aesthetic 
aspect,  details  in  the  object  may  be  ignored  as  others 
may  be  emphasised,  if  not  exaggerated.  This  really 
is  but  a  continuance  and  development  of  the  principle 
inherent  in  the  act  of  "  seeing  "  to  which  I  have  just 
referred.  For  instance,  the  presentation  of  a  gallop- 
ing horse  in  one  definite  composite  moment  is  not 
true  to  the  momentary  action  of  the  horse  itself  as 
perceived.  If  thus  El  Greco  exaggerates  in  portraits 
the  dimensions  of  his  figures,  emphasises  the  single 
features  to  produce  the  strongest  characterisation, 
chooses  pronounced  contrasts  of  light  and  shade  and 
colour  to  give  one  vivid  totality  to  the  whole  scene, 
this  unusual  and,  perhaps,  untrue  rendering  of  living 
forms  may  all  be  so  thoroughly  subordinated  to  his 


FAULTY   DRAWING  171 

own  individual  pictorial  sense  and  imagination  and 
to  the  forcible  realisation  in  his  work  of  his  own 
conceptions  and  moods,  that  many,  if  not  most,  of 
his  pictures  are  distinctive  and  high  forms  of  pictorial 
art.  But  it  is  important  and  essential  to  remember 
that  it  is  in  spite  of,  and  not  because  of,  these  con- 
cessions of  ordinary  visual  truth  to  a  wider  aim  of 
formal  harmony,  that  his  works  are  to  be  appreciated 
and  admired.  Such  a  practice  ought,  however,  never 
to  be  put  forward  as  the  rule  and  norm  of  pictorial 
art  ;  and,  still  less,  ought  it  to  form  a  school,  which 
aims  at  establishing  the  normal  standards  of  that  art 
in  exaggerated  eccentricities  of  drawing  and  colour, 
and  without  the  genius  for  true  artistic  harmony 
possessed  by  El  Greco.  The  most  modern  schools  of 
"  impressionism  "  and  "  futurism  "  are  justified  to 
some  degree,  as  in  their  protest  and  reaction  against 
the  commonplace  and  mechanical  conceptions  of 
antiquated  technique,  as  well  as  against  the  realistic 
schools  which  aim  at  indifferent  rendering  of  truth  to 
life  and  nature  without  harmony  or  form.  But  they 
are  wrong — unless  they  convincingly  take  their  stand 
in  the  domain  of  the  art  of  pure  "  ornamentation  "— 
when  they  obtrude  obvious  faults  in  drawing,  in 
perspective,  and  in  harmonious  colour,  while  basing 
their  impressionistic  pictorial  harmony  of  objects  in 
nature,  in  human  and  animal  figures,  trees  and  plants, 
rocks  and  houses  which  are  unrecognisable  or  "  out 
of  drawing,"  so  that  the  unprejudiced  spectator  with 
normal  visual  senses  is  at  once,  and  above  all,  struck 
by  the  discrepancy  between  the  pictorial  representa- 
tion of  these  objects  and  his  own  normal  visual 
images  of  them  in  life.  However  much  such  artists 
justify  their  general  aesthetic  theory  of  aiming  at 
harmonious  forms  and  colours,  they  do  not  succeed 
in  realising  these  theories  in  their  works,  which 
directly  contradict  their  own  theories. 


172  ESTHETICS,   ART 

The  true  aim  of  the  Arts  of  Meaning  must  be  to 
fuse  into  just  proportion  and  harmony  these  two 
extremes  of  Realism  and  Idealism — a  task  which 
the  ancient  Greeks  were  the  first  to  achieve  for  the 
world,  so  that  the  term  "  classic  "  will  ever  suggest 
this  right  balance  in  the  evolution  of  art  throughout 
all  ages. 

To  the  conveyance  of  accurate  meaning,  which 
thus  complicates,  obscures  and  sometimes  diverts 
into  inartistic  channels  the  various  arts  which 
present  definite  things,  events,  experiences  of  nature 
and  life,  we  must,  in  order  to  create  the  harmonious 
whole  of  a  true  work  of  art,  add  other  elements  coming 
from  relatively  alien  sources  and  aims  which  still 
further  inhibit,  impede,  dilute,  and  complicate  the 
chief  aim  of  the  artist  to  establish  Pure  Form  and 
harmony  in  the  sphere  of  aesthetic  creativeness. 
Such  complications  are  due  to  the  fact  that  the  nature 
of  outer  objects  in  the  world  and  in  the  life  from  which 
the  artist  chooses  his  subjects  alters  with  the  varia- 
tion of  the  human  mind,  the  point  of  vision  which 
man  may  adopt,  as  well  as  the  development  of  society 
and  civilisation.  The  change  of  purpose  in  the  things 
and  beings  which  man  perceives,  the  change  of 
"  Fashion  "  which  the  modification  of  communal  life 
in  successive  periods  establishes,  stand  in  the  way, 
and  embarrass  the  discovery  and  the  appreciation  of 
the  pure  form  which,  on  the  grounds  of  normal 
physical  and  physiological  development,  the  artist 
endeavours  to  establish. 

Take,  for  instance,  the  human  and  normal  forms 
with  which  the  graphic  and  plastic  arts  are  principally 
concerned.  Let  us  even  simplify  this  complex 
problem  by  limiting  our  scope  to  the  Homo  Europeus, 
and  not  include  the  other  races  of  man.  There  can 
be  no  doubt  that  the  typical  proportions  of  the 
human  body  and  of  the  human  face,  in  their  relation 


CHANGES    IN   STANDARDS    OF   FORM     173 

to  one  another  and  in  the  normal  anatomical  and 
physiological  development  of  each  one  of  the  visible 
organs  of  the  body  and  the  features  of  the  face,  have 
been  evolved  and  established  by  what,  roughly 
speaking,  we  might  call  classical  art.  But,  however 
complex  and  arduous  the  task  has  been  in  the  past, 
and  ever  remains,  of  thus  responding  to  our  sense  of 
proportion  in  appreciating  a  human  form  on  the 
ground  of  physiological  normality,  it  was,  and  is,  a 
comparatively  simple  task.  When,  however,  to  the 
existing  complexities  are  added  the  changes  in  our 
standard  of  admiration  and  appreciation,  forcibly, 
if  not  necessarily,  produced  in  us  by  the  development 
of  the  fullness  of  our  communal  social  life,  the  task 
of  the  artist  in  composing  into  harmony  all  these 
standards  due  to  new  appreciations  of  form  becomes 
still  more  complicated  and  difficult,  though,  no 
doubt,  art  itself  gains  in  variety  and  in  the  living 
expansion  of  its  domain  and  activity.  When  nature 
is  thus  not  left  to  its  purely  physiological  activities, 
but  man,  with  his  needs  and  desires  and  purposes  in 
the  course  of  social  evolution,  steps  in  to  modify  into 
different  channels  the  functioning  of  the  human 
body,  the  physical  types  and  ideals  of  man  have 
become  essentially  modified. 

The  simpler  the  conditions  of  communal  life  in  each 
period  and  in  each  locality,  the  simpler  the  establish- 
ment of  the  typical,  the  more  will  it  approach  to 
the  type  naturally  evolved  by  the  interaction  of 
physiological  causes.  When  the  chief  and  all- 
absorbing  task  of  man  was  protection  against  savage 
animals  and  human  enemies,  the  highest  type 
from  every  point  of  view,  including  social  and  ethical 
needs,  was  the  strong  man,  whose  physical,  and 
especially  muscular,  development  markedly  responded 
to  such  needs.  So  also  this  bodily  strength  secured 
his  powrer  of  asserting  his  superiority  over  the 


174  ESTHETICS,   ART 

weaker  members  of  his  own  community.  When,  in 
a  further  stage,  he  invents  and  produces  mechanical 
means  of  defence  and  offence — that  is,  arms — the 
efficiency  of  his  strength  is  conditioned  by  his  skill 
in  using  those  arms  ;  and  further  modifications  have 
been  constantly  recurring  in  consequence  of  changes 
in  the  character  of  his  weapons  throughout  his  whole 
historical  evolution  until — to  take  a  striking  instance 
— we  come  to  the  most  marked  change  in  the  history 
of  highly  civilised  European  peoples  when  the  fully 
armed,  mounted  knight  of  the  Middle  Ages,  and  all 
the  social  qualities  which  his  superiority  implied,  was 
pulled  down  from  his  high  and  dominant  position, 
owing  to  the  invention  of  gunpowder  and  all  that  this 
implied.  In  our  own  times,  owing  to  the  various 
inventions  in  defensive  and  offensive  arms,  we  have 
witnessed,  and  are  witnessing,  momentous  changes, 
perhaps  as  great  and  significant  as  resulted  from  the 
invention  of  gunpowder.  The  consequence  thus  is, 
that  at  an  early  stage  different  modifications  of  the 
physiological  type  of  the  perfect  body  of  man  assert 
themselves  and  effectively  modify  the  ideals  of  form. 
In  the  first  place,  skill  is  added  to  strength,  fleetness 
and  agility  to  the  mere  muscular  development,  and, 
especially  in  ancient  Greece,  through  the  great  festivals 
with  their  athletic  games,  subdivisions  of  types 
corresponding  to  the  "  heavy  "  and  "  light  "  games 
(as  in  war  there  was  the  heavy  "  hoplite  "  and  the 
more  lightly  armed  warrior),  supervene,  until  at  last 
skill  leads  over  to  intelligence,  and  even  the  out- 
wardly visible  signs  of  such  intelligence  become  the 
reason  for  admiration  as  regards  the  physical  ap- 
pearance of  man.  The  more  that  moral  and  intellectual 
qualities  become  effective  means  of  establishing  social 
dominance,  the  more  do  the  physical  concomitants 
and  outwardly  visible  attributes  of  those  qualities 
affect  physical  appearance  and  constitute  the  type 


MANIFESTATION  OF  SKILL  IN  STRENGTH    175 

of  man  most  admired — most  perfect.  When  to  this 
strong  motive  force  in  developed  communal  life  there 
is  added  the  powerful  factor  of  sexual  selection,  there 
appears  a  still  more  complex  modification  of  the 
simple  physiological  type.  The  direct  recognition  of 
social  superiority  itself  then  becomes  a  very  powerful 
factor  in  the  modification  of  the  ideal  of  the  human 
form.  The  physical  qualities  which  correspond  to, 
and  produce,  grace  and  charm,  on  account  of  their 
direct  or  remote  and  vague  association  with  intel- 
lectual and  moral  qualities  bearing  upon  social  life  and 
adding  to  the  direct  sexual  attractiveness,  become 
more  and  more  potent  and  modify  the  representation 
of  the  visible  attributes  and  forms  which  the  artist 
represents  in  his  harmonious  composition.  Every 
step  and  modification  in  the  evolution  of  social  life 
itself  and  of  its  complex  factors,  produces  a  direct 
modification  in  the  establishment  of  the  perfect 
physical  type  and  the  outer  appearance  of  the  ideal 
man. 

The  same  fact  is  to  be  noted  in  the  historical  develop- 
ment and  modification  of  the  female  form  in  art. 
The  purely  physiological  type,  in  the  harmonious 
inter-relation  and  proportion  of  all  the  visible  organs, 
is  at  a  very  early  stage  modified  by  the  powerful 
obtrusion  of  the  sexual  element,  in  that,  after  all, 
the  chief  and  central  function  of  woman  is  to  be  the 
mother  of  children.  It  is  thus  that,  from  the  earliest 
times,  those  attributes  in  the  form  of  woman  which 
suggest  her  capacity  of  childbearing  and,  preceding 
that  function,  that  of  her  powers  of  sexual  stimulation 
and  attractiveness,  become  most  powerful  elements 
affecting  her  presentation  of  perfect  form,  the  purely 
physiological  and  anatomical  proportion  of  bodily 
forms  in  perfect  harmony. 

These  factors,  for  instance,  in  various  phases  of 
historical  evolution,  directly  act  upon  the  widening 


176  ESTHETICS,   ART 

and  accentuation  of  the  hips,  and  this  widening, 
when  elaborate  and  complicated  dress  is  introduced, 
leads  to  the  relative  narrowing  of  the  waist  and  the 
corresponding  exaggeration  of  the  hips,  by  all  kinds 
of  artificial  devices,  which  appear  singular  and  even 
grotesque  to  the  people  who  are  not  under  the 
influence  of  such  an  individual  fashion.  Here  again, 
and  perhaps  even  to  a  greater  degree  than  in  the 
case  of  man,  immediately  "  social  "  attractivenesses 
and  amenities  obtrude  their  modifying  influences, 
until  the  woman  who  manifests  the  attributes  of  a 
higher  social  class,  attractions  of  wealth  and  refine- 
ment, sets  the  standard  of  female  form  and  strikes 
the  keynote  of  physical  charm.  I  have  elsewhere  l 
indicated  in  one  single  instance  the  paradoxical 
fitfulness  of  such  influences  when  enlarging  upon  the 
well-known  degeneration  of  Saxon  words  with  the 
advent  of  the  Norman  Conqueror,  who  claimed  the 
monopoly  of  social  refinement  for  the  words  in  Nor- 
man-French language.  Thus  the  word  buxom  (from 
the  Saxon  beogany  bugan,  to  bend)  originally,  no 
doubt,  conveyed  the  lithe  and  svelte  gracefulness  of 
the  female  form.  But,  with  the  introduction  of 
Norman-French,  it  was  lowered  in  meaning  to  the 
sphere  of  the  healthy  and  rotund  peasant  woman 
when  the  Norman  Conqueror  assigned  his  own  terms 
to  the  graceful  woman  of  his  own  class.  The  word 
came  to  convey  the  very  opposite  of  its  original 
meaning. 

These  modifications,  which  reflect  the  endless 
variety  of  historical  changes  in  all  the  fine  shad  ings 
of  our  actual  social,  as  well  as  economic,  life,  are 
directly  reflected  in  art,  which  takes  immediate 
cognisance  of  the  fullness  of  life  and  expresses  this  in 
the  perfection  of  harmonious  form.  We  can  trace 

1  Balance  of  Emotion  and  Intellect,  Appendix,  "  Language  and  the 
Emotions,"  pp.  209-10. 


FASHION,    HABITUATION,   NOVELTY      177 

this  powerfully  active  process  in  our  own  time  in 
every  year  and  almost  every  day  in  what  might,  by 
a  familiar  phrase,  be  called  the  influence  of  fashion. 
I  have  elsewhere  l  dealt  with  this  subject,  and  have 
specially  emphasised  two  main  currents  in  the  pro- 
duction of  fashion  in  industrial  art,  as  well  as  in  the 
higher  forms  of  art.  These  two  potent  factors  are 
Habituation  and  the  Desire  for  Novelty. 

These  two  influences  often  clash,  and  in  this 
struggle  the  one  may  temporarily  dominate  over  the 
other.  We  then  have  either  a  conservative  and  a 
moderating,  or  a  radical — if  not  revolutionary — tone 
and  direction  of  taste.  But  it  must  be  noted  in  the 
whole  history  of  art  in  all  its  numerous  manifestations 
that,  whatever  new  varieties  are  introduced  and 
dominate  for  the  time,  the  physiological  normality 
and  its  type,  which,  as  regards  the  human  figure, 
was  practically  established  by  the  Hellenic  artist  in 
"  classic  "  form,  always  reasserts  itself  in  the  ever- 
recurring  conflict  between  the  Ideal  and  the  Real, 
the  Classical  and  the  Romantic.1 

I  might  enlarge  this  inquiry  by  dealing  with  similar 
elements  of  change  that  affect  and  modify  pure 
formal  harmony  in  every  other  aspect  of  life — which 
from  the  plan  and  nature  of  this  inquiry  would  lead 
us  too  far  into  the  discussion  of  special  aesthetics. 
But  I  must  just  suggest  in  a  few  words  the  similar 
modification  of  these  laws  of  form  as  applied  to  the 
establishment  of  perfect  types  in  the  animal  world. 

i  Journal  of  R.A.  of  Arts,  March  27,  1914. 

•  I  have,  however,  endeavoured  to  show  how  the  successive  changes 
in  the  character  of  the  various  athletic  games  in  the  classical  world 
affected  the  rendering  of  the  human  physical  type  in  art.  See  "  The 
Influence  of  Athletic  Games  upon  Greek  Art,"  Proc.  Roy.  Inst.  Gt. 
Brit.,  1883  (reprinted  in  Essays  on  the  Art  of  Pheidias,  1885).  The 
whole  history  of  art  in  its  successive  changes  shows  actions  and  re- 
actions between  the  classical  and  romantic,  the  chief  moving  force 
being  Habituation  and  the  Desire  for  Novelty. 

13 


178  AESTHETICS,   ART 

This  is  especially  the  case  with  regard  to  domestic 
animals.  I  have  shown  elsewhere 1  the  influence  of 
domestication  in  converting  the  aim  and  purpose 
(telos)  of  the  breeder  in  the  cause,  the  naturally  efficient 
agents  of  change  and  evolution  which  lead  to  the 
establishment  of  such  animal  types.  The  perfect 
type,  the  ideal  form,  of  all  our  several  domestic 
animals  (horse,  dog,  cow,  etc.)  are  modified  by  the 
aim  or  purpose  (what  Aristotle  calls  entelechy)  through 
which  man  interferes  with  purely  "  natural  "  selection. 
Thus  the  horse  has  changed  from  the  earliest  periods 
of  its  history  to  the  time  when  it  had  to  carry  a  fully 
armed  knight  down  to  the  thoroughbred  horse  of  the 
present  day.  But  in  our  own  day  we  have  developed 
subdivisions,  such  as  the  heavy  cart-horse,  the  hunter, 
the  hackney,  the  polo-pony,  etc.,  all  of  which  estab- 
lish their  own  type  or  ideal  of  form.  So  too  the  dog 
has  undergone  all  the  modifications  from  the  dachs- 
hund at  the  one  end  to  the  greyhound  at  the  other, 
and,  by  means  of  the  influence  of  "  fashion,"  and 
even  economical  interests,  with  every  successive  dog- 
show,  the  perfect  type  is  modified  even  in  the  same 
race  and  breed.  The  same  thing  is  clearly  illustrated 
by  the  development  and  the  type  of  the  cow  and  bull. 
All  the  Arts  of  Meaning  thus  deal  with  the  fullness 
of  life  in  all  its  varieties  and  modifications,  adopting 
and  applying  objects  that  possess  inherent  meaning 
in  order  to  create  a  harmonious  organic  whole,  in 
which  the  form  and  matter  of  expression  are  in- 
separably blended,  fused  into  individual  life  by  the 
creative  imagination  of  the  artist,  directly  appealing 
through  the  senses  to  his  fellow-men  and  reproducing 
in  him  the  perfect  harmony  of  the  work  of  art, 
culminating  in  the  aesthetic  mood  pervading  the 
human  mind  with  its  harmony.  But  the  several 

1  Eugenics,    Civics,   and   Ethics,  p.  7  seq.    (Cambridge    University 
Press,  1920). 


SCULPTURE  179 

arts  appeal  to  different  senses  and  use  different 
materials  and  modes  of  artistic  expression.  They 
can  thus  be,  and  have  thus  been,  broadly  subdivided 
into  the  Plastic  Arts  or  Sculpture,  the  Pictorial  Arts 
or  Painting,  the  Literary  Arts  (including  Poetry  and 
Prose),  among  which  may  also  be  classified  Dramatic 
Art  (though  it  might  be  grouped  as  a  class  by  itself), 
and,  finally,  Musical  Art,  with  which  in  the  main  we 
have  already  dealt. 

(a)  SCULPTURE  l 

The  fictile  or  plastic  arts — Sculpture — excepting 
in  their  purely  ornamentative  stage,  have  as  their 
subject-matter  human  and  animal  life.  Though  they 
may  present  other  forms  and  even  introduce  these  as 
accessory  elements,  they  are  practically  limited  to 
the  human  mind  and  animal  figure  and  the  manifesta- 
tion of  life  through  them.  The  vehicle  for  artistic 
expression  is  an  inorganic  material  :  clay,  wood, 
stone,  metal,  bone,  ivory,  etc.,  and  various  modifica- 
tions or  combinations  of  these.  Thus  the  first  and 
most  difficult  task  of  the  sculptor  is  to  infuse  con- 
vincingly the  essential  characteristics  of  organic  life 
into  inorganic  material — to  infuse  life  into  a  dead 
substance,  by  means  of  the  spirit  of  artistic  harmony 
which  provides  the  living  breath  of  imagination, 
feeling  and  thought  to  the  lifeless  stuff.  The  first 
and  central  condition  for  such  artistic  expression, 
inherent  in  the  very  principle  of  harmony,  is  that 
those  manifestations  of  life  should  be  selected  which, 
so  far  from  being  contradictory  to  the  essential  nature 
of  the  material  itself,  should  harmonise  with  it  ; 
that  is,  that  those  aspects  of  life  should  be  avoided 

1  Essays  on  the  Art  of  Pheidias,  C.U.P.,  1885  ;  especially  essay  en- 
titled ' '  The  Spirit  of  the  Art  of  Pheidias. ' '  Greek  Sculpture  and  Modern 
Art,  C.U.P.,  1914. 


180  AESTHETICS,   ART 

which,  by  their  very  nature,  are  opposed  to  the  most 
manifest  qualities  of  the  material  in  which  the  forms 
and  meanings  are  conveyed.  But  the  aim  of  the 
sculptor  being  to  convey  his  aesthetic  or  harmonious 
conceptions  of  life  into  a  lasting  form,  to,  as  it  were, 
perpetuate  the  harmony  of  life  and  its  complete 
moments,  ultimately  to  produce  what  Aristotle  has 
called  alo-Orjra  aiSia  (feelings  eternalised),  he  sought 
for,  selected,  and  used  materials  which  should  thus 
be  not  only  perceptible  to  the  senses  but  should 
retain  their  form  unaltered  as  long  as  possible.  Life 
and  its  changes  should  be  "  monumentalised,"  and 
that  means  as  far  as  possible  "  eternalised." 

The  fact  remains  that  such  lasting  materials  are 
inorganic.  And  thus  the  artist  had,  from  the  begin- 
ning, to  face  a  problem  of  contradiction  between  this 
nature  of  the  material  and  of  the  subject-matter 
which  he  desired  to  infuse  into  it,  which  is  organic. 
We  thus  find  that  in  the  history  and  evolution  of  this 
art  we  can  detect  as  one  principal  feature  the  advance 
of  technique  in  the  sculptor's  craft.  The  earlier 
stages  in  the  development  of  sculpture  manifest 
themselves  chiefly  in  the  sculptor's  struggle  with  the 
reluctant  material  and  his  final  victory  over  it. 
Moreover,  we  recognise  in  the  history  of  sculpture  of 
every  period  and  country,  which  we  can  trace  from 
its  beginnings  upwards,  that  the  earlier  works  fail  in 
so  manipulating  the  material  as  to  produce  the 
illusion  of  life.  The  archaic  works  are  stiff  and  life- 
less. They  may  be  symmetrical  and  harmonious  in 
outline  and  in  inner  composition,  and  in  so  far  satisfy 
the  principles  of  ornamentative  art  ;  but  they  fail 
to  produce  the  lines  and  forms  of  life  and  movement.1 

i  In  the  history  of  some  arts  it  may  be  found  that  some  works  of  a 
distinctly  earlier  period  are  "  freer  "  and  more  naturalistic  than  others 
which  are  of  a  distinctly  later  date  and  manifest  more  of  these  archaic 
characteristics.  Such  is  not  only  the  case  when  we  compare  some 
Palaeolithic  with  some  Neolithic  sculpture,  as  well  as  ome  works  of  the 


SYMMETRY   IN   ARCHAIC   SCULPTURE    181 

They  forcibly  illustrate  the  primary  impulse  to 
artistic  creativeness,  which  does  not  arise  out  of  the 
imitative  instinct,  but  from  the  purely  artistic 
impulse  of  harmonious  composition.  Symmetry 
dominates  over  rhythm,  lasting  proportion  over 
fleeting  life. 

The  predominance  of  the  regular,  symmetrical, 
transference  of  form  to  the  detriment  of  the  pro- 
duction of  the  illusion  of  life  is  also  and  in  great 
part  due  to  the  technical  incompetence  of  the  fictile 
or  plastic  artists  in  early  periods.  It  arises  from  the 
difficulty  or  opposition  offered  by  the  inorganic 
material,  as  well  as  from  the  want  of  skill  in  handling 
the  tools  to  impress  the  material  with  the  forms  the 
artist  endeavours  to  give  them. 

In  his  desire  to  perpetuate  fleeting  life  the  sculptor 
must  thus  choose  lasting  material,  and,  as  he  pro- 
gresses, he  finds  more  and  more  materials  which, 
infused  with  the  lasting  form  of  "  aesthetic  "  life, 
are  not  subject  to  change  and  annihilation.  From 
the  earliest  time,  consciously  or  subconsciously,  he 
wishes,  in  the  words  of  Horace,  exigere  monumentum 
aere  perennius — to  erect  a  monument  more  lasting 
than  bronze.  Perhaps,  among  the  earliest  materials 
which  he  thus  chooses,  when  he  has  risen  beyond  the 
"  ornamentative  "  phase  to  the  stage  of  pure  art,  to 
create  a  statue,  however  rudimentary  in  form,  is 
clay.  This  material,  moreover,  has  the  specific 
inherent  advantage  of  "  plasticity,"  readily  receiving 

Palaeolithic  period  with  those  of  a  later  date  in  that  period  (a  pheno- 
menon with  which  we  have  dealt  above  under  "  ornamentative  "  art), 
but  also  in  the  sculpture  of  Egypt  and  even  of  Greece.  In  the  latter 
we  find  that  some  Mycenaean  and  Minoan  works  of  sculpture  are  much 
less  archaic,  much  freer,  than  subsequent  works  of  the  archaic  historic 
Greek  period.  But  (as  I  maintained  in  dealing  with  ornamentative  art) 
these  highly  naturalistic  earlier  works  marked,  not  the  beginning,  but  a 
later  period,  if  not  the  end,  of  a  wave  of  social  and  artistic  development. 
We  can  always  show  works  antecedent  to  these  remarkable  naturalistic 
specimens  which  are  more  primitive  and  archaic  in  character. 


182  AESTHETICS,   ART 

form  (as  children  making  mud-pies  have  used  this 
material  in  all  ages)  ;  and  thus  the  fictile  sculptor, 
the  coroplast,  is  closely  related  to,  if  not  identical 
with,  the  earliest  potter.  Wood  is  also  one  of  the 
earliest  materials  used,  especially  in  countries  with 
climatic  conditions  which  favour  the  preservation  of 
that  material.  But  the  choice  of  wood,  as  perhaps 
the  most  prevalent  material  for  the  Greek  statue, 
even  at  so  late  a  period  as  when  athlete-statues  were 
erected  in  Greece  to  commemorate  victories  in  the 
great  games  (see  Pausanias,  vi,  p.  187),  may  have 
been  in  part  due  to  the  fact  that  the  tree-stem  and 
board  took  the  place  of  symbolic  images  in  the  earliest 
cults,  which  were  connected  with  tree-worship.  In 
the  same  way  stone — hard  and  reluctant  as  it  is — 
and,  ultimately,  marble,  were  at  a  very  early  period 
chosen  for  the  sculptor's  material,  not  only  because 
their  manipulation  was  introduced  in  the  earliest 
building  structures,  but,  as  in  the  case  of  the  tree- 
stem,  the  pillar  was  an  early  forerunner  of  the 
temple  statue,  as  stones  and  rocks  were  clearly 
associated  with  early  cults.  In  due  course  metal 
followed  and,  by  natural  association  with  the  forms 
of  ornamentative  art,  the  precious  metals  and 
precious  stones  ;  until  bronze,  by  its  perfect  artistic 
quality  for  the  purposes  of  monumental  sculpture, 
became  more  and  more  predominant. 

It  will  be  seen  that  in  these  materials  there  is  a 
natural  progression  relative  to  the  monumental 
quality  of  durability.  Moreover,  it  will  also  readily 
be  perceived  how,  for  instance,  the  tree-stem  was 
naturally  discarded  when  its  place  was  taken  by  stone 
(especially  marble)  and  bronze  for  large  statues, 
not  only  because  the  raw  material  of  wood  was 
limited  in  amount  and  width,  so  that  the  sculptor 
was  hampered  in  presenting  laterally  extended 
compositions,  but  also  because  projecting  portions 


ADVANCE   THROUGH   INVENTIONS         183 

of  a  statue  were  subject  to  injury  and  destruction. 
But  it  is  important  to  remember  that  the  term  for 
the  temple  statue  in  early  times  was  a  "  carved 
image  "  of  wood  (%6avov).  In  the  progression  of 
these  materials,  moreover,  it  will  be  found  that,  with 
the  invention  and  improvement  of  tools  to  work 
them  (thus  the  invention  of  the  sawing  of  marble  is 
noted  by  Greek  writers  as  marking  a  distinct  phase 
in  the  development  of  archaic  sculpture),  bronze  and 
marble,  as  well  as  the  combination  of  gold  and  ivory, 
tended  to  become  the  leading  materials  for  the  higher 
development  of  the  sculptor's  art. 

The  invention  of  new  tools,  as  well  as  the  improve- 
ment of  the  older  ones,  for  the  working  of  these  several 
materials  greatly  increased  freedom  and  naturalism, 
giving  to  the  statues  the  illusion  of  life  by  means  of 
adequate  outline  composition  in  attitudes  suggesting 
or  indicating  a  variety  of  living  variations  and  more 
definite  characteristic  incidents  and  scenes  expressive 
of  the  full  diversity  of  life,  and  also  by  means  of  the 
detail-modelling  of  the  surface  of  the  human  figure 
in  all  its  parts.  The  gradual  advance  from  archaic 
stiffness  to  full  and  naturalistic  presentation  of  life 
in  successive  stages  is  clearly  marked  in  the  systema- 
tised  classification  of  the  periods  of  the  history  of 
sculpture  (especially  Greek  sculpture),  and  thus 
presents  to  the  student  a  most  interesting  and  instruc- 
tive sequence.  We  are  able  to  trace,  step  by  step, 
how  the  ancient  sculptors  overcame  the  inherent 
reluctance  of  the  material,  from  the  earliest  extant 
works  onwards  to  the  period  of  perfection  and  decline  ; 
and  how,  before  the  period  of  full  freedom,  the  works 
exhibit  this  struggle  in  the  obtrusion  of  technical 
incapacity  on  the  part  of  the  sculptor  in  using  his 
tools  for  this  purpose.  We  can  even  detect  how  the 
surviving  and  persisting  reminiscences  of  techniques 
and  styles  of  earlier  ages,  fixed  by  the  nature  of 


184  ESTHETICS,   ART 

earlier  materials  and  less  perfect  tools,  obtrude  them- 
selves for  a  time  in  the  work  of  artists  belonging  to 
later  periods  who  had  already  selected  new  materials 
and  were  possessed  of  more  perfect  tools. 

The  wealth  of  monuments  which  has  come  down  to 
us  from  ancient  Greece  amply  proves  and  illustrates 
this  evolutionary  process  ;  while  the  extant  passages 
in  ancient  authors  definitely  provide  new  confirma- 
tory evidence  with  regard  to  each  successive  step  in 
this  development  and  progression.  I  have  before 
noted  one  illustrative  and  striking  instance  relating 
to  the  achievement  of  the  sculptor  Pythagoras  of 
Rhegion.  Innumerable  instances  of  a  similar  kind 
are  at  hand  for  any  student  who  wishes  fully  to 
apprehend  this  important  development  in  the  history 
of  human  effort. 

Undoubtedly  thus  in  the  outline  composition  and 
attitudes  in  all  their  varieties  the  advance  towards 
freedom  and  naturalism  was  achieved,  from  the  rudest, 
stiff,  and  symmetrical  archaic  statue,  to  the  living 
figure  suggestive  of  movement  and  life.  So  also  in 
the  modelling  of  the  surface  of  the  human  figure,  the 
contractibility  and  elasticity  of  the  human  skin  as 
it  covers  different  muscles  and  organs  are  indicated 
with  naturalness  and  freedom,  and  all  together  suggest 
an  organic  being  and  not  a  lifeless  and  mechanical 
collocation  of  parts. 

I  must  here  give  the  actual  words  of  an  eminent 
Roman  critic,  Quintilian,  as  forcibly  rendering,  in 
the  contemporary  thought  and  language,  the  prin- 
ciples of  sculpture  as  illustrated  by  the  works  and 
the  artists  of  his  own  day. 

"  For  my  part,  '  This  counsel  twice,  yea  thrice, 
will  I  repeat  '  (a  quotation  from  Verg.  &n.  iii.  436), 
the  orator  must  on  every  occasion  have  regard  to  two 
things — to  the  form  and  to  the  meaning.  It  is  often 
necessary  to  introduce  some  variation  in  the  estab- 


PASSAGE   FROM    QUINTILIAN  185 

lished  and  conventional  arrangement  of  his  theme, 
and  sometimes  it  is  fitting  too.  For  instance,  in  the 
case  of  statues  or  paintings  we  see  a  variety  of 
costume,  expression,  pose.  When  the  body  is  bolt 
upright  it  has  but  little  charm.  Suppose  it  confronts 
us  full-face,  with  arms  dropped  to  the  sides  and 
feet  joined  together  :  why,  the  work  will  be  rigid — 
wooden — from  top  to  toe.  It  is  just  the  turning  and 
the  varied  rhythm,  so  to  speak,  which  give  in- 
dividual action  true  to  life.  That  is  why  hands  are 
shaped  in  such  diverse  ways  and  faces  take  on  a 
thousand  expressions.  Some  works  show  the  runner's 
attitude  and  impetuous  advance,  others  are  seated  or 
lean  on  a  support.  Here,  again,  are  undraped 
figures,  there  draped  ;  elsewhere  partly  draped, 
partly  undraped  forms.  For  sheer  twist  and  com- 
plexity could  anything  equal  Myron's  famous  Quoit- 
thrower  ?  Yet  if  a  critic  were  to  condemn  the  work 
as  not  upright  enough  to  suit  his  taste,  would  he  not 
miss  the  whole  point  of  the  masterpiece  ?  The  very 
novelty  and  difficulty  that  offend  him  constitute  its 
chief  claim  to  our  admiration."  * 

1  I  have  here  given  a  very  free  translation  of  the  Latin.  In  this 
passage  Quintilian  is  evidently  arguing  against  some  conservative 
school  of  art  critics  who  maintain  the  conservative  standards  of  con- 
ventional beauty  (the  "  idealists  "),  as  opposed  to  those  who  favour 
the  more  forcible  rendering  of  individual  life  (the  realists)  in  upholding 
the  "  twist  and  complexity  "  of  movement  and  life  in  the  Discobolus  of 
Myron  against  what  we  have  called  the  static  symmetry  of  earlier 
statues.  The  opposition  of  the  two  terms  quid  deceat  and  quid 
expediat  I  have  rendered  as  conveying  the  contrast  between  form 
and  meaning,  as  in  a  passage  dealing  with  the  art  of  Polycleitus  I 
maintained  (see  The  Argive  Her&um,  vol.  i,  p.  pp.  173-6)  that  the 
same  author's  use  of  the  term  decor  meant  "  formal  beauty."  I  have 
thus  also  translated  flexus  ille  et,  ut  sic  dixerim,  motus  dat  actum 
quendam  et  f actum  with  "it  is  just  the  turning  and  the  varied  rhythm, 
so  to  speak,  which  give  individual  action  true  to  life."  The  following 
is  the  Latin  text : 

"  Equidem  id  maxime '  praecipiam  ac  repetens  iterumque  iterumque 
monebo  ' :  res  duas  in  omni  actu  spectet  orator,  quid  deceat,  quid 
expediat.  expedit  autem  saepe  mutare  ex  illo  constitute  traditoque 
ordine  aliqua,  et  interim  decet,  ut  in  statuis  atque  picturis  videmus 
variari  habitus,  vultus,  status  ;  nam  recti  quidem  corporis  vel  minima 
gratia  est.  nempe  enim  adversa  sit  facies  et  demissa  bracchia  et  iuncti 


186  ESTHETICS,   ART 

The  final  step  was  made  in  the  history  of  Greek 
sculpture  in  what  is  called  the  Period  of  Transition, 
from  about  the  end  of  the  sixth  century  B.C.  to  the 
middle  of  the  fifth  century  B.C.  But  in  the  interesting 
and  attractive  works  of  that  period — as  is  the  case  in 
all  similar  periods  of  transition  in  the  arts  of  other 
countries  and  periods — we  still  notice,  to  however 
slight  a  degree,  the  obtrusion  of  the  manipulation  of 
tools,  suggesting  mechanical  work,  in  the  rendering 
of  these  organic  forms,  in  composition  and  modelling, 
and,  in  so  far,  counteracting  the  full  illusion  of  life, 
which  is  only  obtained  when  the  mechanical  work  of 
the  artist  is  entirely  removed  from  the  observation 
of  the  spectator,  who  is  then  absorbed  in  the  full  and 
engrossing  illusion  of  life  which  the  work  evokes 
in  him. 

I  may  here  anticipate  and  point  out  a  supremely 
important  principle  of  artistic  criticism,  namely,  that 
the  obtrusion  of  the  technique  in  the  making  of  any 
work  of  art,  details  of  construction  and  manipulation 
(whether  in  sculpture  or  in  painting,  in  literary  art 
or  in  music),  be  it  by  the  want  of  skill  of  the  artist 
or  by  the  facility  and  exuberance  of  technical  skill  in 
redundant  virtuosity,  always  results  in  the  destruction 
or  weakening  of  the  illusion  which  the  work  of  art 
primarily  aimed  at  producing.  In  such  sculptors 
as  Pythagoras  of  Rhegion,  Myron,  Alcamenes  and 
others,  these  last  traces  of  archaism  were  overcome, 
until  in  Pheidias  and  his  contemporaries  and  suc- 
cessors the  full  and  adequate  presentation  of  the 

pedes  et  a  summis  ad  ima  rigens  opus,  flexus  ille  et,  ut  sic  dixerim, 
motus  dat  actum  quendam  et  factum :  ideo  nee  ad  unum  modum 
formatae  manus  et  in  vultu  mille  species  ;  cursum  habent  quaedam  et 
impetum,  sedent  alia  vel  incumbent,  nuda  haec,  ilia  velata  sunt,  quae- 
dam mixta  ex  utroque.  quid  tarn  distortum  et  elaboratum  quam  est 
ille  discobolos  Myronis  ?  si  quis  tamen  ut  parum  rectum  improbet 
opus,  nonne  ab  intellectu  artis  afuerit,  in  qua  vel  praecipue  laudabilis 
est  ipsa  ilia  novitas  ac  difficultas  ?  " — Inst.  Or.  2.  13.  8-10, 


HARMONY   IN    CHOICE   OF   SUBJECT      187 

human  figure,  in  what  is  technically  called  "  natural- 
ism," was  attained. 

But  there  remains  the  other  element  in  this  com- 
plete and  organic  harmony  which  marks  the  perfect 
work  of  art — namely,  the  choice  of  the  suitable 
subject  in  life  which  essentially  and  fully  harmonises 
with  the  material.  We  have  already  noted  or  sug- 
gested that  this  harmony  cannot  be  attained  unless 
those  aspects  of  life  are  chosen  for  presentation  by 
the  supreme  artistic  tact  and  imagination  of  the  artist, 
which  harmonise  with  the  essential  and  ever-present 
qualities  and  attributes  of  the  sculptor's  material 
or,  at  least,  do  not  obtrusively  contradict  these 
ever  manifest  attributes.  With  whatever  degree  of 
technical  skill  a  sculptor  may  put  into  his  material 
the  convincing  form  of  fleeting  and  momentary  move- 
ment or  event,  the  spectator,  consciously  or  sub- 
consciously, will  feel  and  resent  the  contradiction 
between  the  subject  conveyed  and  the  mode  of 
expression.  The  essentially  momentary  motion, 
especially  when  it  is  not  typical,  but  individual  and 
even  accidental,  in  man  or  animal,  fixed  in  a  weighty 
and  lasting  material,  which  specifically  and  inevitably 
suggests  heavy  and  durable  qualities,  must  strike  the 
spectator  with  the  "  contradiction  in  terms,"  the 
inadequacy  or  absurdity  of  the  idea  suggested  or  at 
least  the  absence  of  full  harmony  in  the  organic  unity 
of  the  work  presented. 

It  was  thus  the  supreme  genius  of  the  ancient  Greek 
artists,  notably  of  Pheidias,  to  have  selected  those 
forms  of  life  most  completely  in  harmony  with  the 
material  of  their  art.  I  have  elsewhere  1  endeavoured 
to  show  how  in  the  broader  aspects  this  was  achieved, 
in  that  Pheidias  and  the  other  great  sculptors  of 
ancient  Greece  established  in  art  what  I  called  the 
Type  and  the  Ideal  of  nature  and  life.  The  Type 

1  Essays  on  the  A  rt  of  Pheidias,  Essay  II. 


188  AESTHETICS,   ART 

refers  more  especially  to  the  physical,  the  Ideal  more 
to   the  spiritual   attributes.     Both  Type   and    Ideal 
are  the  generalised  forms  of  the  individual  physical 
and  spiritual  manifestations  (they  by  distant  analogy 
correspond  to  "  the  laws  of  nature  "  of  the  physical 
world).     The  individual  connotes  the  finite,  changing 
and  fleeting,  whereas  the  general  implies  that  which 
is    lasting.     Thus    in    establishing   the    type    in    the 
physical  appearance  and  life  of  man,  including  the 
generalised  varieties,  activities  and  incidents  of  such 
life,  the  artist  chooses  that  which  is  most  lasting — 
which  is  monumental  in  character,  worthy  of  being 
expressed  in  the  weightiest  language  of  his  art  and  in 
a  form,  moreover,  more  lasting   than  bronze  (acre 
perennius).     The  Greek  artist  found  fashioned  for  his 
hand  the  religious  and  heroic  world  of  his  mythology, 
which  had  early  established  in  his  mind  and  in  that 
of  the   whole   people,   intelligible   to   all,   the   more 
spiritual  manifestations  of  human  character  and  life 
and  of  the  social  and  moral  world.    The  great  gods 
Zeus,  Hera,  Apollo,  Athene,  Ares,  Demeter,  etc.  ;  the 
numerous  heroes,  Hercules,  Theseus,  Prometheus,  etc., 
their  qualities,  lives   and  fates,  raised  from  fleeting 
individuality  into  the  heroic  sphere  of  living  generali- 
sation, furnished  the  imagination  with  visual  types 
of  an  ideal  world.     Religious  and  secular  literature  1 
was  the  common  and  familiar  vehicle  for  giving  to 
these  more  abstract  ideas  a  physical,  if  not  a  tangible, 
reality  in  the  consciousness  of  the  Greek  people.     It 
was  thus  that  Pheidias,  above  all,  could  present  and 
fix  through  the  eyes  of  the  spectator  these  ideals  of 
spiritual  types  in  the  qualities  of  man  and  of  human 
life. 

*  In  the  sacred  writings  of  the  East,  and  more  especially  in  those  of 
the  Hebraistic  and  Christian  world  throughout  the  Middle  Ages  and 
modern  times,  similar  types  were  furnished  to  the  artist,  intelligible 
to  the  people,  though  not  in  that  directly  naturalistic  form. 


FULL   PLASTIC   HARMONY  189 

It  was  owing  to  these  conditions  (and  this  point 
is  to  be  especially  noted)  that  in  the  monumental 
quality  of  his  sculpture  he  could  display  the  complete 
harmony  between  the  form  and  material  of  his  art. 
Among  the  numerous  great  sculptors  of  succeeding 
generations  we  may  add  that  the  work  of  Michel- 
angelo and,  in  some  of  his  statues,  Rodin,  attained 
to  this  largeness  of  monumental  character. 

In  singling  out  these  great  masters  in  the  art  of 
sculpture,  and  in  thus  recognising  the  essential 
qualities  of  their  works,  as  illustrating  the  highest 
achievement  of  that  art,  embodying  the  essential 
principles  of  harmony  which  underlie  it,  we  must 
guard  against  the  danger  of  dogmatic  narrowness  in 
limiting  our  approval  and  admiration  by  such  absolute 
standards  and  thus  ignoring  further  developments  in 
sculpture  which  do  not  directly  and  fully  correspond 
to  the  standards  of  greatness  set  by  a  Pheidias  and 
a  Michelangelo.  We  must  thus  not  forget  or  ignore 
that,  in  the  evolution  of  life  in  the  various  periods  of 
civilisation,  the  variety  and  complexity  of  that  life 
itself,  as  well  as  the  standards  of  aesthetic  perception 
and  appreciation,  created  as  a  whole  in  the  human 
mind  through  the  advance  of  painting,  poetry, 
music  and  kindred  arts,  as  finally  the  advance  in  the 
technique  in  the  treatment  of  the  older,  and  the  intro- 
duction of  newer  materials  and  tools  in  sculpture 
and  in  the  sister  arts — that  all  these  conditions  created 
in  their  combined  influence  newer  and  more  diverse 
forms  of  aesthetic  appreciation,  as  well  as  the  need  for 
the  satisfaction  of  these  in  each  single  art. 

Thus,  in  spite  of  what  has  been  said  above  regarding 
the  essential  harmony  of  sculpture  directed  by  the 
weighty  and  monumental  character  of  its  materials, 
which  leads  to  the  selection  of  the  larger,  broader 
and  more  lasting  aspects  of  life  and  character,  and 
to  the  avoidance  of  momentary,  light,  or  frivolous 


190  ESTHETICS,   ART 

subjects,  the  growing  feeling  and  appreciation  for 
movement,  developed  in  the  aesthetic  mind  through 
the  confluence  of  so  many  artistic  influences,  led  the 
artists  of  subsequent  periods  to  a  far  wider  and  higher 
skill  in  the  presentation  of  movement  in  sculpture. 
We  may  note  this  development  in  a  whole  line  of 
sculptors  in  ancient  Greece,  as  well  as  in  more  modern 
art,  when  the  sculptor  has  possessed  the  supreme 
artistic  tact  to  choose  the  most  generalised  sculp- 
turesque form  to  express  various  movements,  to  fix 
the  fleeting  moment  through  the  very  soul  of  the 
whole  movement  into  its  most  significant  instinct, 
by  the  harmonious  fusion  of  all  parts  of  the  moving 
body  to  express  the  one  central  idea  of  activity  and 
life.  In  Italian  art  *  perhaps  the  highest  point  in 
this  one  central  achievement  was  reached  by  Giovanni 
da  Bologna,  whose  figures  and  groups  impress  complex 
activity  and  movement  by  most  varied,  and  still 
harmonious,  lines  and  composition,  of  what  might  be 
called  crossed  rhythms  ;  while  Rodin  and  his  followers 
have  successfully  struggled  with  the  difficult  task 
of  seizing  the  complex  and  individualised  movements 
and  moods  in  the  pose  and  modelling  of  the  human 
figure  expressive  of  such  vitality  and  movement. 

Needless  to  add  that  in  the  small  statuettes,  which, 
because  of  their  size  and  their  more  fleeting  qualities, 
do  not  imperatively  suggest  the  monumental  and 
lasting,  such  greater  diversity  and  liberty  in  the 
choice  of  subjects  have  always  been  admissible.  The 
same  applies  to  the  wonderful,  fantastic  and  natura- 
listic works  in  bronze  and  in  ivory  of  Chinese  and 
Japanese  sculpture,  with  its  harmonious  and  decora- 

1  Of  course,  I  cannot,  and  need  not,  dwell  here  on  the  numerous 
Italian  and  French  sculptors,  the  great  Tuscan  sculptors  preceding 
Giovanni  da  Bologna,  with  their  singular  national  and  religious  charm, 
nor  the  French  sculptors  of  the  seventeenth,  eighteenth,  and  nineteenth 
centuries,  with  their  distinctive  national  grace  and  their  courageous 
vitality. 


EXTENSION   OF    SUBJECT-MATTER        191 

tive  sinuosity  of  lines  and  modelling,  and  its  natura- 
listic variety  of  characterisation  of  actual  life  down 
to  the  grotesque. 

The  same  applies  in  the  growth  of  the  appreciation 
and  the  need  of  texture  in  modelling.  In  Greek  art 
the  development  on  this  side  was  already  furnished, 
as  regards  the  great  temple  statues,  by  the  combina- 
tion of  gold  and  ivory  with  the  addition  of  profuse 
coloured  enamelling  and,  subsequently,  by  poly- 
chrome sculpture  in  marble.1  No  doubt,  both  before 
and  after  the  Pheidiac  period  the  development  of  the 
art  of  painting  in  its  various  forms  increased  the 
appreciation  and  the  need  of  varieties  of  texture  in 
the  eyes  of  the  Greek  people,  as,  in  the  later  develop- 
ment of  painting  in  modern  times  down  to  our  own 
days,  such  a  growing  need  for  the  satisfaction  of  an 
increased  sense  of  texture,  light  and  shade,  and  colour, 
reacted  upon  the  art  and  technique  of  the  sculptor, 
producing  ultimately  some  of  the  innovations  in  the 
use  of  material  and  in  modelling  of  a  Rodin  and  his 
modern  followers. 

The  sculptor  thus  has  presented  to  him  a  much 
wider  sphere  as  regards  the  choice  of  subjects  and  the 
variety  of  life  and  movement  beyond  the  central  and 
supreme  expression  of  his  art  in  monumental  sculpture. 
But  even  at  far  earlier  dates  the  possibility  of  a  wider 
sphere  of  expression  was  furnished  and  copiously  used 
by  the  sculptors  of  every  age.  This  occurred  especi- 
ally in  relief  sculpture,  as  well  as  in  pedimental 
sculpture,  both  of  which  forms  are  not  pure  sculpture 
in  the  strictest  sense  of  that  term,  as  they  are  modified 
by  their  fusion  with,  and  subordination  to,  archi- 
tectural and  decorative  art.  The  supreme  harmony 
of  composition  which  the  pure  sculptor  in  the  round 
must  concentrate  upon  is,  in  "architectural "  sculpture, 

1  Essays  on  the  Art  of  Pheidias,  Essay  VIII,  "  The  Athene,  Parthenos, 
and  Gold  and  Ivory  Statues,"  p.  269  seq. 


192  .ESTHETICS,   ART 

widened  out  to  a  new  form  of  harmony,  in  which 
composition,  craft  and  technique  must  include  the 
harmony  inherent  in  the  building  as  a  whole,  the 
function  of  each  part,  and  the  nature  of  the  object 
decorated.  Of  themselves  these  needs  urge  him  on 
to  larger  subjects  and  compositions,  including  more 
complicated  scenes  and  movements.  Even  the  pedi- 
mental  groups,  which  consist  of  single  figures  in  the 
round,  subject  to  the  inner  harmony  of  form  suggested 
by  each  figure  in  itself,  still  form  parts  of  an  organic 
whole,  a  larger  composition.  As  they  are  seen  by 
the  spectator  standing  at  some  distance  from  the 
building,  they  really  appear  in  the  nature  of  high 
relief.  Now,  both  high  relief  and  low  relief,  in  some 
respects,  stand  halfway  between  sculpture  and  paint- 
ing, or  present  the  fusion  of  the  two  arts  ;  and  sculp- 
ture is  thus  modified  by  the  laws  governing  pictorial 
composition,  as  well  as  by  some  of  the  laws  governing 
the  technique  of  drawing  and  even  of  painting.  The 
result  is  that  sculpture  may  here  borrow  from  the 
graphic  and  pictorial  arts  some  of  the  subjects 
conveying  far  greater  complexity  of  life,  incidents,  and 
movement. 

What  we  learn  from  the  consideration  of  all  these 
essential  features  in  the  art  of  sculpture  is  :  that  the 
full  achievement  of  this  art  depends  upon  the  complete 
harmony  between  the  subject-matter  and  the  artistic 
expression  of  material  in  which  it  is  conveyed.  But  we 
also  learn  that  both  the  spiritual  harmony  of  meaning 
and  the  artistic  technique  of  expression  are  modified 
and  developed  by  the  application  of  the  fundamental 
principle  of  the  evolution  of  that  special  form  of 
changing  life,  as  well  as  by  the  historical  evolution  of 
each  period  and  country.  There  is  thus  added  to 
the  intrinsic  aesthetic  interest  and  quality  in  this 
art  (as  in  every  art)  another  delicate  and  varied 
source  of  artistic  appreciativeness  to  be  found  in  the 


MODERN    SCULPTURE  193 

historical  character  of  eachlanguage,  period,  nationality, 
locality  and  school,  and  this  historical  character  finds 
its  expression  in  the  evolution  of  man's  life  by  means 
of  that  art.  The  art  of  the  East  and  its  various 
periods  and  schools,  as  well  as  that  of  ancient  Greece 
and  Rome,  has  this  additional  aesthetic  attractiveness 
and  charm  added  to  the  specific  quality  of  their  re- 
spective types  of  sculpture.  The  Gothic  sculpture  of 
the  successive  periods  in  the  Middle  Ages,  among  which 
the  thirteenth  century  stands  out  markedly,  conveys 
a  distinctive  quality  and  charm  inseparable  from  the 
intrinsic  value  of  the  sculpture  itself.  This  is  also 
true  of  the  art  of  Italy  and  the  subtle  grace  and 
spirituality  in  early  Tuscan  sculpture  and  its  later 
achievements,  even  down  to  the  exaggerated,  and  at 
times  grotesque,  movement  of  the  Barocco  period, 
which  also  produced  the  supremely  excellent  portraits 
by  Bernini.  The  same  applies  to  that  rich  and  full 
plastic  expression  in  the  great  art  of  France,  from  its 
primitive  sculptures  through  the  Renaissance  to  the 
delicate  and  powerful  expression  of  each  characteristic 
age  from  Louis  XIV  onwards  to  the  present  day.  Yet 
each  period  must  adequately  and  sincerely  live  up 
to  the  highest  standards  of  taste  which  express  their 
full  spirit,  and  thus,  as  conscious  human  exponents  in 
their  special  language  and  craft,  the  artists  must 
contribute  their  normal  share  to  the  spiritual  evolution 
of  man. 


(b)  PAINTING 

The  graphic  Arts  of  Meaning  are  of  course  closely 
related  in  origin  and  in  development  in  time  and 
space  with  the  graphic  arts  of  "  ornamentation  "  as 
regards  form  and  the  art  of  "  writing,"  from  the 
rudest  signs  and  picture-writing  through  hieroglyphics 
to  the  pictorial  records  of  historical  facts.  The  earliest 
14 


194  AESTHETICS,   ART 

symmetrical  incisions  or  scratchings  of  symmetrical 
lines  and  shapes,  produced  directly  to  satisfy  the  har- 
moniotropic  instinct  and  the  feeling  for  form,  would 
naturally  lead,  when  the  need  and  desire  for  unspoken 
but  graphic  communication  and  fixing  of  meanings 
arose,  to  such  graphic  representations  to  convey  the 
images  of  things.  When  the  reproduction  of  colour 
was  added  to  that  of  line  the  ornamentative  function 
received  a  new  and  wider  variation.  On  the  other 
hand,  the  presentation  of  definite  objects  grew  in 
accuracy.  This  same  ornamentative  impulse  was 
confirmed  and  developed  pari  passu  with  the  develop- 
ment of  skill  and  variety  in  the  production  of  objects 
of  use,  buildings,  and  implements  of  peace  and  war, 
which  themselves  called  for  ornamentation.  This 
again  led  to  the  development  of  decorative  graphic 
art  on  the  walls  of  caves  and  more  advanced  dwellings, 
as  well  as  in  utensils.  Especially  when  ceramic  art 
in  its  various  materials  was  developed,  the  decoration 
of  this  group  of  objects  finally  led,  through  innumer- 
able stages,  to  highest  form  of  vase-painting.  But 
though  we  can  thus  trace  the  origin  of  such  graphic 
art  pictorially  free  in  itself  from  its  earliest  technical 
beginnings  to  the  higher  and  more  complex  achieve- 
ments, it  is  questionable  whether  in  itself  it  can  be 
considered  amongst  the  earliest  manifestations  of 
artistic  creativeness.  For,  a  priori,  as  well  as  em- 
pirically in  the  evidence  of  existing  remains  of  anti- 
quity, the  fashioning  of  works  to  convey  the  meaning 
of  actual  things  in  purely  graphic  art  presupposes  a 
power  of  symbolising  and  abstracting  in  the  human 
senses  which  would  not  mark  the  earliest  evolution 
of  these  senses,  their  passive  and  active  functioning, 
and  the  power  of  stimulating  them  by  abstractions 
or  symbols  of  reality.  For  the  essential  characteristic 
of  graphic  art  is  that  it  transfers  depth  and  volume 
to  a  flat  surface.  Now,  the  realisation  of  depth  and 


THE  PICTURE  195 

volume — though  the  duality  of  our  visual  organ  of 
sight  may  apply  the  stereoscopic  principle — is  prim- 
arily ascertained  through  touch  and  not  through 
vision.  Thus  the  coroplastic  craft  and  art  which 
leads  children  to  make  mud-pies  is  the  earlier  form  of 
image-making  ;  and  earliest  prehistoric  excavations, 
as  well  as  the  works  of  savages,  will  always  show  some 
form  of  rude  figures  in  the  round.  Though  modern 
children  are  born  with  pencils  in  their  hand,  if  they 
were  allowed  to  live  within  reach  of  any  fictile  sub- 
stances, or  to  make  for  themselves  the  rudest  form 
of  doll,  they  would  make  such  attempts  at  creative 
imagery  before  they  would  "  draw  "  their  typical 
house  and  man. 

Thus,  on  the  one  hand,  the  graphic  and  pictorial 
"  Arts  of  Meaning,"  which  lead  to  the  picture  in  the 
full  sense  of  that  term,  were  subservient  to  the  art  of 
ornamentation  as  their  technique  grew  out  of  these, 
as  well  as  to  the  picture-writing  symbolism  which 
belongs  to  the  domain  of  writing  and  of  language- 
communication.  To  understand  fully  and  accurately 
the  essential  principles  of  this  Art  of  Meaning,  even 
in  its  earliest  origin  and  development,  we  must  realise 
clearly  its  own  highest  and  complete  form,  namely, 
the  picture  as  a  work  of  art,  corresponding  to  the 
statue  which  represents  the  full  expression  of  the 
plastic  arts.  The  picture  is  thus  not  in  the  decorative 
and  narrative  forms,  which  are  subservient  to  a 
different  essential  principle  and  aim  at  absorbing  the 
chief  attention  of  the  spectator.  He  has  before  him 
a  building  or  implement  of  use,  or  the  quasi-linguistic 
communication  of  facts  and  thoughts,  which  are 
graphically  ornamented  and  to  which  the  pictorial 
work  is  subordinated.  Not  from  drawings  but  from 
the  picture  must  we  discover  the  principles  of  pictorial 
art.  The  essence — the  origin  and  aim — of  the  picture 
lies  in  the  fact  that  the  various  meanings  of  things, 


196  AESTHETICS,   ART 

events,  thoughts  and  feelings,  which  are  to  be  con- 
veyed on  a  flat  surface  by  the  technical  means  of 
graphic  and  pictorial  art,  are  to  be  harmonised  into 
an  organic  whole,  so  that  all  the  attributes  and  parts 
of  the  work  should  be  inter-related  and  fused  into 
organic  unity,  and  that  the  harmony  of  the  parts 
and  of  the  whole  should  convincingly  convey  the  new 
harmony  of  meaning,  strengthened,  if  not  wholly 
produced,  by  this  unity  of  spirit,  by  this  harmony 
of  form.  In  the  simplest  terms,  we  may  realise  this 
essential  and  distinctive  nature  of  the  picture  in  the 
fact  that  our  pictures  are  surrounded  by  a  "  frame  " 
or  a  "  mount."  The  frame  is  a  neutral  border  which 
separates  from  the  surrounding  objects,  and  it  limits 
the  space  in  which  the  pictorial  artist  creates  his  work. 
The  eye  of  the  spectator  is,  on  the  one  hand,  not  to  be 
distracted  by  any  other  subjects  outside  the  frame 
or  by  the  associations  connected  with  them,  and  on 
the  other  it  is  to  be  concentrated  upon  the  lines  and 
forms  and  colours  through  which  the  artist  presents 
objects  related  to  one  another  in  form  and  meaning 
and  to  the  whole  in  a  central  unity  of  presentation — 
meaning,  thought  and  feeling,  again  harmonised  into 
one  mood — all  together  evoking  the  corresponding 
harmony  of  emotion  and  mood  in  the  spectator, 
stimulating  through  these  his  feelings  and  thoughts. 
The  picture  thus  framed  is  not  primarily  ornamenta- 
tive  or  decorative,  not  subordinated  to  the  building, 
room,  or  article  of  furniture  or  use  ;  on  the  contrary, 
one  might  almost  say  that  the  place  where  it  hangs 
merely  exists  as  a  receptacle  for  it  and  is  either 
indifferent  or  subservient  to  it.  Nor  is  the  picture 
thus  framed  a  part  of  a  succession  of  objects  depicted, 
the  succession  itself  corresponding  to  the  logical 
sequence  of  communications  in  sounds,  symbols,  or 
imagery  to  things  in  order  to  replace  the  narrative 
of  language  in  recording  a  fact  merely  as  a  means 


GREEK   PAINTING  197 

of  such  definite  communication  which  has  served  its 
purpose  and  may  be  discarded  entirely  when  the 
definite  message  has  been  given — the  form  of  expression 
being  in  no  way  essential  to  the  one  immediate  aim 
of  recalling  a  definite  fact  to  the  apprehension  of  man 
and  in  no  way  to  his  emotional  feelings  or  moods. 

The  gradual  development  and  struggle  of  the 
painter's  skill  to  achieve  this  final  product  of  pictorial 
art  through  the  ages  is  most  varied  and  complicated. 
It  can  be  traced  in  the  history  of  the  art  of  the  East 
and  West,  of  the  North  and  South,  wherever  human 
beings  have  lived  and  developed  a  social  organisation. 
We  can  here  in  no  way  attempt  to  give  a  resume*  of 
this  varied  history  throughout  the  ages  ;  but  the 
main  facts  of  establishing  and  elucidating  the  develop- 
ment of  the  principles  of  pictorial  art  can  best  be 
gathered  if  we  consider  in  its  broad  outlines  the 
evolution  of  painting  in  Greece — especially  in  its 
relation  to  the  whole  organic  body  of  Hellenic  art 
and  its  subsequent  direct  influence  upon  the  whole 
art  of  the  Western  world.  For  we  have  already 
insisted  upon  the  fact  that  the  Greeks  were  the  first 
people  to  produce  the  statue  and  the  picture  as  pure 
objects  of  the  Art  of  Meaning,  as  in  every  department 
of  the  mind  they  developed  culture,  which  means  the 
functioning  and  exertion  of  the  human  mind  with  the 
direct  aim  of  satisfying  the  spiritual  needs  corre- 
sponding to  these  functions  and  with  no  ulterior  and 
secondary  purpose  of  material  advantage  or  use. 
They  thus  developed  consciously  and  systematically 
art,  science,  ethics,  politics  and  the  Art  of  Living, 
as  they  were  also  the  first  people  to  develop  athletic 
games. 

Though  it  be  admitted  that  the  ancient  Greeks  thus 
established  the  essential  principles  of  art  for  sculpture, 
it  is  maintained  that  they  did  not  to  the  same  degree 
achieve  this  with  regard  to  pictorial  art.  Writers 


198  ESTHETICS,   ART 

and  critics  of  note  have  fallen  into  this  misconception 
concerning  the  ancient  Greeks.  There  can  be  no 
doubt  that,  as  in  the  case  of  music,  pictorial  art  from 
the  early  Renaissance  onward  down  to  our  own  days 
did  make  comparatively  greater  and  more  far-reaching 
advances  than  is  the  case  with  sculpture  or  certain 
other  forms  of  art.  But  there  can  be  no  doubt  that 
the  essential  elements  which  go  to  the  making  of  a 
picture,  and  a  great  picture,  were  already  to  be  found 
in  the  works  of  the  great  painters  of  ancient  Greece. 
It  must,  in  the  first  instance,  be  remembered  that 
the  best  tablet-pictures,  upon  which  the  fame  of 
their  greatest  artists  rested,  from  the  nature  of  the 
materials  used  are  no  longer  extant.  We  are  thus 
limited,  as  regards  our  appreciation  of  their  works, 
to  their  decorative  art  in  vase-paintings  and  kindred 
forms,  or  to  the  mural  paintings  in  the  private  bourgeois 
houses  of  a  comparatively  unimportant  provincial 
town  like  Pompeii  and  a  number  of  mural  paintings 
and  mosaics  in  Rome  and  elsewhere.  Whoever  has 
read  with  care  the  description  and  appreciation  of 
the  great  works  by  the  chief  painters  of  ancient 
Hellas  scattered  throughout  the  writings  of  ancient 
authors,  must  realise  that  these  were  on  the  same 
level  of  excellence  as  the  great  works  of  sculpture. 
Nor  can  it  be  conceived  that  the  standards  of  artistic 
appreciativeness  of  the  Greek  people  and  art  critics, 
measured  by  their  sculpture,  could  be  essentially 
lower  when  applied  to  the  sister  art.  Moreover, 
we  are  furnished,  through  numerous  passages  in 
the  ancient  authors,  with  a  systematic  account  of  the 
development  of  painting,  achieved  step  by  step, 
which  convincingly  shows  how  that  art  passed  through 
all  the  phases  of  technical  advance,  as  well  as  in  the 
enlargement  of  subject-matter  in  painting,  which 
gradually  led  to  the  highest  pictorial  achievement. 
It  is  a  most  striking  and  singular  coincidence  that  the 


GREEK   PAINTING   AND   SCULPTURE      199 

history  of  this  development  of  painting,  as  recounted 
in  the  ancient  authors,  corresponds  in  many  instances 
exactly  to  the  definite  steps  by  which  in  Vasari 
the  achievements  of  the  various  artists  in  the  history 
of  Italian  painting  rose  to  the  highest  perfection. 
Though  modern  graphic  art  in  its  various  forms  has 
made  most  striking  advances  in  technique  and  in  a 
variety  of  modes  of  pictorial  expression,  as  well  as  in 
the  enlargement  of  the  scope  of  subjects  in  life  and 
nature  which  it  has  added  to  its  domain,  the  Greek 
artists  did  undoubtedly  establish  and  form  the  leading 
principle  of  that  art,  as  they  did  for  the  art  of  sculpture. 

No  doubt — herein  following  the  natural  progression 
of  plastic  and  pictorial  arts — the  development  of 
Greek  painting  in  freedom  of  expressiveness  belongs 
to  a  period  far  subsequent  to  that  of  sculpture.  In 
fact,  for  a  considerable  period  of  its  higher  develop- 
ment the  Greek  painter  is  under  the  influence  of  the 
principles  and  ideals  of  the  great  sculptors  of  his  own 
and  preceding  ages.  To  put  it  roughly,  whereas 
the  acme  of  Greek  sculpture  must  be  assigned  to 
about  the  middle  of  the  fifth  century  B.C.,  that  of 
painting  is  to  be  found  nearer  the  middle  of  the  fourth 
century  B.C.  ;  while  the  great  painters  of  the  fifth 
century  B.C.,  centring  round  Polygnotos,  are  still 
"  sculpturesque  "  in  the  choice  and  treatment  of 
subjects  and  even  in  the  basic  principles  of  their 
linear  design.  The  great  painters  of  the  succeeding 
generations,  such  as  Zeuxis,  Parrhasios  and  Timan- 
thes,  established  the  full  and  specific  principles  in 
conception  and  execution  by  means  of  chiaroscuro, 
colour  and  its  values,  a  new  departure  of  pictorial 
art  having  been  introduced  by  the  innovations 
initiated  by  Apollodorus. 

As  we  have  already  seen  in  dealing  with  the  develop- 
ment of  ornamentative  or  decorative  art,  as  well  as  of 
sculpture,  the  complete  introduction  of  the  "  picture  " 


200  ESTHETICS,   ART 

itself,  the  tablet-picture,  was  facilitated,  if  not 
achieved,  by  its  association  with  the  other  arts- 
building  and  implements  of  use,  into  which  it  was 
introduced  as  an  "  ornament."  This  fact  is  most 
fully  illustrated  by  the  history  of  Greek  vase-painting 
(especially  to  be  noted  later  in  the  black-figured 
and  the  four  red-figured  vases)  as  well  as  in  the 
decorations  of  buildings  in  (<  fresco  "  painting. 

The  decoration  of  vases  in  the  several  structural 
parts. of  the  vase — neck,  belly,  foot,  handles — especi- 
ally in  the  square  or  oblong  space  on  the  body  of  the 
vase,  or  the  circular  medallion  in  the  middle  of  the 
flat  cup  or  kylix,  furnished  such  a  definite  space,  well 
defined  and  "  framed  off  fl  within  the  vase,  and  within 
such  a  "  framed  "  space  was  generally  drawn  or 
painted  some  mythical  or  epical  scene,  or  scenes  from 
athletic  life,  which  space  by  itself  led  the  painter  to  a 
definite  form  of  composition,  as  it  also  led  his  con- 
structive imagination  to  select  definite  scenes  from 
life  and  to  concentrate  through  all  the  means  of 
craft  his  artistic  skill  in  conveying  the  complete 
meaning  and  enforcing  it  by  all  the  principles  of  har- 
mony inherent  in  and  essential  to  his  particular  art. 
Greek  vase-painting  in  all  its  periods  is  a  perfect 
mine  for  the  study  of  development  in  pictorial 
design. 

When  further  the  task  was  imposed  upon  the  painter 
to  decorate,  by  means  of  his  art,  the  large  though 
thoroughly  defined  wall-spaces  in  great  buildings, 
such  as  the  Stoa  Poikile  at  Athens,  with  living  scenes 
containing  many  figures,  it  will  be  readily  seen  how 
the  development  of  "  composition  "  was  advanced 
and  how  the  need  for  representing  a  great  variety 
of  living  figures  inter-related  by  definite  action  urged 
him  on  to  renewed  efforts.  The  descriptions  and 
appreciations  of  the  works  of  Polygnotos,  son  of 
Aglaophon  of  Thasos,  to  be  seen  at  Athens,  along 


POLYGNOTOS   AND   THE   PRIMITIVES    201 

with  those  of  Nikon,  Panaenos,  and  Pauson,  give 
evidence  of  elaborate  and  vivid  scenes  drawn  in  a 
masterly  manner  in  the  grand  style,  which  may  have 
recorded  some  of  the  qualities  of  great  sculptors  with 
the  epic  fullness  of  situation  and  character  which  in- 
spired the  artists  in  whose  mind  Homer  lived  with  all  the 
wealth  of  his  broad  characterisation  and  the  intimate 
and  vivid  familiarity  of  poetic  imagery,  such  as  the 
Bible  stones  possess  for  the  mass  of  the  people  in 
modern  times,  brought  up  from  childhood  in  the 
knowledge  of  the  Old  and  New  Testaments.  Yet 
the  art  of  the  Polygnotan  painters  in  its  variety  of 
graphic  presentation  and  characterisation  was  pre- 
ceded by  early  struggles  to  enlarge  the  capacity  for 
graphic  presentation  step  by  step  from  its  crudest 
earliest  beginnings  onwards.  Thus  we  learn  that, 
only  with  Eumaros  of  Athens  (little  more  than  a 
generation  before  Polygnotos)  was  the  painter  able 
to  distinguish  in  his  drawings  between  men  and 
women  ;  while  his  pupil  Kimon  of  Kleonae,  according 
to  ^Elian  (V.H.  viii.  8),  "  developed,  as  is  said, 
painting  which  at  that  time  was  only  in  its  first 
stages  and  was  exercised  without  art  or  experience 
by  his  predecessors,  was  really  in  its  teens,  wherefore 
he  also  received  greater  pay  than  his  predecessors." 
Pliny  thus  characterises  his  innovations  (xxxv,  56)  : 
Hie  catagrapha  invenit,  hoc  est  obliquas  imagines,  et 
varie  formare  voltus,  respicientes  suspicientesve  vel 
despicientes .  articulis  membra  distinxit,  venas  protulit, 
praeterque  in  vestibus  rugas  et  sinus  invenit — "  He  in- 
vented catagrapha,  that  is  profile  views,  and  further 
varieties  in  the  movement  of  the  face,  especially  the 
eyes,  showing  the  looking  backwards,  upwards,  and 
downwards  ;  he  also  distinguished  details  in  the  chief 
members  of  the  body,  indicated  the  veins,  and  in- 
troduced in  dress  the  longitudinal  and  massed  hollow 
folds." 


202  ESTHETICS,   ART 

It  will  be  seen  how  this  last  passage  corresponds 
to  that  ascribing  similar  advance  in  the  rendering 
of  the  human  figure  to  Pythagoras  of  Rhegion  and 
Myron  in  sculpture.  Even  in  the  case  of  the  great 
paintings  of  Polygnotos,  which  belong  to  the  Pheidian 
Age,  the  technical  achievements  ascribed  to  him  are 
still  essentially  more  linear  drawing,  sculpturesque 
in  character.  They  chiefly  concern  the  modelling 
of  the  human  figure,  as  well  as  drapery,  as  Pliny 
says  (xxxv.  58):  Primus  mulierestralucidavestepinxit, 
capita  earum  mitris  versicoloribus  operuit  plurimum- 
que  picturae  primus  contulit,  siquidem  instituit  os 
adaperire,  denies  ostendere,  volium  db  antique*  rigore 
variare — "  He  was  the  first  to  paint  women  with 
clinging  [not  '  transparent  ']  drapery,  dressed  their 
heads  with  caps  of  various  colours,  slightly  parted 
the  lips  and  showed  the  teeth — in  short,  he  freed 
the  face  from  its  archaic  hardness  and  severity." 

As  regards  his  use  of  colour,  however,  we  still  find 
him  in  the  elementary  stage.  Quintilian  (xii.  10) 
is  astonished  that  his  simplex  color  is  still  ad- 
mired in  later  days.  We  in  our  days,  who  appre- 
ciate and  admire  the  works  of  the  <(  primitives,"  need 
not  be  astonished  at  this.  Cicero  (Brut.  18)  ascribes 
four  colours  to  him.  Some  of  these  colours  are 
specified  by  Pliny,  namely,  ochre  (sit),  tryginon, 
black  tartar.  There  must  have  been  a  greater 
variety  when  we  hear  that  he  painted  female  figures 
with  caps  of  many  colours.  That  these  must  have 
been  correlated  and  shaded  off  is  evident,  when 
Lucian  (Imag.  7)  praises  the  "  blush  of  the  cheeks 
in  the  face  of  Cassandra."  Still,  the  very  nature 
of  such  praises  proves  that  the  colours  were  applied 
on  a  simpler  scale  without  consideration  of  their  values 
in  relation  to  one  another  and  of  their  relation  to- 
gether to  the  picture  as  a  whole.  They  were  used  in 
their  variety  simply  to  indicate  broad  differences, 


APOLLODORUS  203 

to    strengthen    the  graphic  presentation   of   general 
character  and  individualisation. 

The  real  step  to  the  fuller  development  of  the 
specific  quality  of  painting  as  such  in  the  use  of 
colour — the  beginning  of  specific  painting  (not  under 
the  dominance  of  plastic  art) — is  marked  by  the 
achievements  of  the  painter  Apollodorus,  whom 
Pliny  calls  an  Athenian  and  who  belongs  to  the  suc- 
ceeding generation.  For  Pliny  (xxxv.  61 )  tells  us  that 
"  through  the  gates  of  art  opened  by  Apollodorus, 
Zeuxis  of  Herakleia  stepped  in  the  fourth  year  of 
the  95th  Olympiad."  But  we  learn  that,  immedi- 
ately before  Apollodorus,  Agatharchos  of  Samos, 
who  resided  and  worked  at  Athens,  turned  the  painter's 
art  to  a  definite  use,  which  no  doubt  had  great  in- 
fluence in  freeing  it  from  its  more  archaic  sculptur- 
esque trammels,  and  was  most  effective  in  leading 
Apollodorus  and  his  successors  to  give  greater  techni- 
cal as  well  as  spiritual  freedom  to  the  whole  art  of 
painting.  This  innovation  was  Scene  Painting.  For 
we  learn  from  Vitruvius  (7  Pref.  10)  that  this  artist 
painted  a  scene  for  a  tragedy  of  ^Eschylus  and  wrote 
a  commentary  on  it.  Analogous  to  the  influence 
of  the  athletic  games  on  the  development  of  Greek 
sculpture  at  a  much  earlier  date,  the  influence  of  the 
drama  on  painting  and  its  own  scenic  presentation 
has  the  greatest  effect  in  impressing  upon  the  eyes 
of  the  spectator  in  the  theatre  complex  dramatic 
scenes  and  their  "  composition,"  giving  visible  unity 
to  action.  But  the  introduction  of  the  special  art 
of  scene-painting  had  the  most  far-reaching  technical 
effect  in  that,  perceived  from  a  distance,  scenery  was 
bound  to  tax  the  ingenuity  of  the  painter  in  producing 
illusion  by  means  of  bold  drawing  and,  especially, 
colouring,  and  thus  in  giving  freedom  of  technique 
and  of  introducing  a  fuller  study  and  presentation  of 
light  and  shade  and  of  the  values  of  colour.  Apollo- 


204  ESTHETICS,   ART 

dorus  thus  became  the  first  skiagraphos,  which  is 
closely  related  to  the  schenographos.  Hesychius  and 
Plutarch  explain  this  step  as  "  the  blending  and 
graduation  of  light  and  shade."1 

Innovations  introduced  by  this  artist  and  his 
followers  were  most  important  and  marked  a  new  era 
in  the  development  of  that  art.  By  analogy  we  may 
recall  the  difference  between  the  painting  of  our 
:<  primitives,"  in  the  exquisite  coloured  drawing  and 
modelling  of  Dlirer,  Holbein,  the  Van  Eycks,  and 
their  successors  (a  system  of  painting  which  is  ex- 
emplified in  the  treatise  of  that  art  by  the  miniature 
painter  of  the  Court  of  Elizabeth,  Nicholas  Milliard, 
who  advises  the  "  avoidance  of  shadows  "),  con- 
trasted with  the  introduction  of  strong  differences  of 
light  and  shade  by  Rembrandt  and  all  his  followers. 
At  the  same  time,  the  scope  of  subjects  from  life  and 
nature  is  infinitely  widened  as  the  impressions  of 
vitality  are  intensified  in  the  presentation  of  the 
scenes.  Though  hardly  any  works  of  Apollodorus 
are  mentioned,  we  can  realise  how  startling  must 
have  been  his  innovations  when  we  consider  his  picture 
of  Ajax  struck  by  lightning,  with  the  ships  tossed 
against  the  rocks,  the  rushing  sea,  the  burning  ship, 
and  the  avenging  figure  of  Poseidon  ;  and  we  can 
then  understand  how  the  ancient  critics,  in  spite  of 
their  admiration  for  the  primitives,  could  say  of  him 
(Pliny,  xxxv.  60)  that  he  was  the  first  truly  to  give 
the  living  illusion  of  things  as  they  appear,  and  had 
brought  glory  to  the  painter's  brush,  while  before  his 
day  pictures  could  not  hold  the  eye  of  the  spectator.8 


,  (TTKpdveia  TOV  x/"V&ros  wrlfjiopfas  ffKiaypaQiav  TIJV 
OVTU  \tyovcri'  A^yero  8£  Tit  icai  'Airo\\od6pos  fwypd^os  < 
<rxr)voypd(pos.    Cf.  also  Plut.  de  Glor.  Athen.  2:   'Airo\\o54poj  6 
dvdp&irw  TrpuJTOS'  ^eupwv  <pdop&v  Kal  dTroxpwffw  ffKlat,  Ac.r.X. 

8  '  '  Hie  primus  species  exprimere  instituit  primusque  gloriam  penicillo 
iure  contulit  —  neque  ante  eum  tabula  ullius  ostenditur  quae  teneat 
oculos." 


ADVANCE   IN    TECHNIQUE  205 

Apollodorus  thus  truly  "  opened  the  door  "  to  the 
great  painters,  great  colourists,  as  well  as  draughts- 
men, leading  to  the  highest  development  of  pictorial 
art  in  Greece  under  Zeuxis,  Parrhasios,  and  Apelles. 

The  specific  innovation  of  Apollodorus  was  evi- 
dently carried  still  further  and  confirmed  by  clear 
methodical  treatment  in  Zeuxis.  For  we  learn  from 
Quintilian  (xii.  10)  that  he  is  reported  to  have  in- 
vented the  fixed  principles  of  light  and  shade  (luminum 
umbrarumque  rationem  invenisse  traditus).  But  it  is 
not  only  on  the  technical  side  that  Zeuxis  marks 
such  an  advance  in  pictorial  art ;  it  is  also  in  the 
greater  variety  of  subjects,  which  moreover  he 
produced  by  truly  pictorial  means,  i.e.  by  rendering 
the  situation  with  its  surroundings,  and  not  merely 
conveying  the  full  meaning  within  the  central  subject 
itself.  His  subjects  ranged  from  the  world  of  gods — 
for  instance,  a  great  assembly  of  the  gods,  among  them 
Eros  crowned  with  roses,  also  a  fettered  Marsyas  and 
Pan — to  the  heroic  world  and  the  great  epic  figures, 
Herakles,  Alkmene,  Helena,  Menelaos,  Penelope,  etc. ; 
to  figures  of  daily  life,  such  as  an  athlete,  a  boy  with 
grapes,  and  even  still-life,  such  as  a  bunch  of  grapes. 
His  larger  compositions,  such  as  that  of  the  famous 
Kentaur  Family,  described  in  detail  by  ancient 
authors,  in  some  ways  suggest  to  our  mind  the 
pictures  of  Rubens.  His  contemporary,  Parrhasios, 
while  also  painting  a  variety  of  larger  compositions 
from  the  heroic  world,  as  well  as  a  Personification  of 
Demos,  the  People,  and  subjects  of  real  life,  seems 
to  have  turned  back  again  to  the  more  classical, 
highly  finished  drawing  of  which  he  must  have  been 
a  perfect  master.  In  his  modelling  of  the  body  and 
his  rendering  of  the  expressions  of  the  face  he  appears 
to  have  attained  very  high  perfection. 

With  these  great  innovators  pictorial  art  reaches 
its  height  in  the  fourth  century  B.C.,  and  this  great 


206  AESTHETICS,   ART 

age  of  painters  continues  down  to  the  beginning  of 
the  third  century.  Three  chief  schools  competed 
with  each  other  in  those  days — the  Sikyonian,  the 
Attic,  and  the  Ionic  school.  Of  these  three  the  Ionic 
seems  to  have  been  the  most  influential,  and  its  most 
illustrious  members  were  Euphranor,  Apelles,  and 
Protogenes  ;  though  the  great  impulse  in  the  forward 
direction  is  ascribed  to  the  Sikyonian  artist  Eu- 
pompos.  While  this  development  is  marked  by  a 
great  increase  in  realism,  the  work  of  such  an  artist 
as  Apelles  points  to  the  supreme  mastery  in  the 
rendering  of  beauty,  so  that  we  can  conceive  of  his 
figure  of  Venus  Anadyomene  being  similar  in  aesthetic 
effect  to  the  great  works  of  a  Titian  ;  while  the 
definite  ideas  which  he  embodies  in  the  form  of 
pictorial  allegory  convey  the  deepest  physical 
experiences  in  life,  as  for  instance  in  his  remarkable 
picture  of  Calumny,  the  account  of  which  inspired 
Botticelli  in  his  attempt  to  represent  deep  allegorical 
meanings  convincingly  to  the  eye  of  the  spectator. 

With  all  this  extension  of  the  range  of  subject  into 
every  aspect  of  life,  advanced  by  perfections  in 
technique,  pictorial  art  in  ancient  Greece  cannot  be 
said  to  have  attained  to  the  width,  variety  and 
adequacy  of  full  aesthetic  expression  which  it  reached 
during  later  centuries  in  the  development  of  Euro- 
pean painting.  Though,  for  instance,  there  is  every 
reason  to  believe  that  the  Greek  painters  introduced 
harmonious  landscapes  into  their  subject  pictures, 
landscape  painting  as  such  is  the  achievement  of 
subsequent  ages  and,  in  its  highest  development,  of 
comparatively  modern  times.  Man's  attitude  to- 
wards nature  as  an  object  of  pure  contemplation  in 
the  harmony  of  its  form  and  its  substance,  irrespec- 
tive of  man,  and  as  calling  forth  by  means  of  artistic 
harmony  the  appeal  to  his  appreciation  and  the  satis- 
faction of  his  aesthetic  moods,  belongs  to  a  later  age. 


MODERN    DEVELOPMENTS  207 

Extensive  and  intensive  contemplation  of  nature  has 
led  man  in  his  attitude  towards  her  to  recognise  the 
underlying  laws  or  principles  of  harmonious  existence 
and  change  which  I  have  ventured  to  call  the  Phseno- 
menology  of  Nature.1  Moreover,  the  technical 
innovations  and  varieties  of  graphic  presentation, 
accumulating  through  the  ages,  have  furnished  such 
a  variety  of  means  of  expression  that  pictorial  art 
can  practically  cover  the  whole  extent  of  life  and 
nature  seen  through,  and  rendered  in,  form  and 
colour.  Thus  from  the  Byzantine,  Romanesque  and 
Gothic  mosaics  and  paintings  in  stained  glass,  through 
the  wealth  of  exquisite  pictorial  illustrations  in 
illuminated  manuscripts  (both  as  regards  colour  and 
pure  drawing),  perhaps  through  the  goldsmith's  craft 
of  incised  design,  the  innumerable  methods  and  com- 
binations of  engravings,  from  woodcuts  into  line- 
engraving,  through  etching,  mezzotint,  aquatint,  pari 
passu  with  the  advances  in  wall-painting,  new  fields  are 
opened  to  pictorial  art.  Through  the  Flemish  school  of 
the  Van  Eycks,  the  vehicle  for  oil-colours  and  all  its 
modifications,  and,  finally,  with  the  addition  of  pastel 
and  water-colour,  the  pictorial  artist  has  at  his  com- 
mand a  variety  of  media,  lending  themselves  to  the  ex- 
pression of  every  form  of  life  and  nature  and  the  various 
moods  these  may  evoke  in  the  heart  and  mind  of  man. 
The  further  developments  in  the  technical  rendering  of 
chiaroscuro,  in  which  the  achievements  of  a  Rembrandt 
stand  out  conspicuously,  and  the  knowledge  and  com- 
mand of  the  laws  of  perspective,  still  further  lend 
accuracy  to  the  presentation  of  life.  Above  all,  in  the 
realisation  of  the  relationships  between  colours  and  the 
modification  of  their  intrinsic  values  on  account  of  those 
relationships,  coupled  with  the  indications  of  light  and 
shade,  the  painter's  craft  is  fused  with  a  whole  world  of 

1  The  Work   of  John   Ruskin,  p.  62   (New  York,   Harper  &  Bros. ; 
London,  Methuen;  1894). 


208  AESTHETICS,   ART 

modified  colour  and  form  as  well  as  meaning,  which 
endows  his  art  with  the  greatest  variety  and  vitality, 
urging  him  to  adapt  these  to  all  shadings  of  thought, 
as  well  as  of  emotional  moods,  of  the  expression  of 
individual  character  in  man  and  in  outer  nature. 

Broader  subdivisions  and  categories  have  thus  been 
more  or  less  clearly  established  within  this  endless 
variety  of  pictorial  conception  and  execution,  besides 
the  perfect  pictorial  rendering  of  harmonious  figures 
and  forms  for  the  sake  of  their  own  beauty  ;  just  as, 
in  pure  lyrical  poetry,  the  beauty  of  rhythmical 
sounds  in  the  quasi-musical  sequence  of  words  is  the 
most  prominent  feature  of  that  art.  In  spite  of  the 
reactionary  revolt  against  what  some  artists  of  the 
modern  school  contemptuously  call  "  prettiness  n 
(unfairly  begging  the  question  by  the  connotation 
of  frivolity  in  the  search  of  man  for  pure  formal 
beauty),  this  formal  and  lyrical  motive  will  ever 
remain  a  central  stimulation  of  endeavour  for  the 
pictorial  artist.  Venus  and  Apollo  will  always  live, 
in  spite  of  the  fascinating  and  riotous  vitality  of  the 
Maenad  and  the  Faun.  So  too  the  rendering  of 
every  variety  of  outer  appearance  and  visible  character 
in  man,  as  well  as  of  objects  in  nature,  will  always 
find  fertile  field  of  activity  in  the  portrait,  single 
figure,  as  well  as  inanimate  objects  called  "  still-life." 
But  beyond  this  there  is  a  wide  scope  of  work  for  the 
painter  in  religious  art,  which  formed  the  centre  of 
endeavour  for  the  artists  of  the  Middle  Ages  and 
reflected  the  leading  moral  currents  of  the  life  of 
those  times.  Then  follow  scenes  and  incidents  from 
sacred  and  profane  life  in  peace  and  war,  subject- 
pictures  of  all  kinds,  "  historical  ';  scenes,  battle- 
scenes,  scenes  reflecting  important  and  typical  events 
in  social  life,  down  to  the  genre-scene  in  the  humbler 
aspects  of  life  ;  life  out  of  doors,  domestic  life  in 
interiors,  and,  finally,  landscape  in  all  its  varieties, 


HARMONY  OF  SUBJECT  AND  TREATMENT     209 

including  also  the  aspects  of  man's  life  in  the  country, 
in  the  street,  and  in  work. 

The  essential  quality  which,  in  all  these  multiform 
attempts  to  render  the  fullness  of  life  in  a  definite 
and  circumscribed  work  of  graphic  art,  constitutes 
a  true  work  of  art,  is  to  be  found  (as  it  was  found  in 
sculpture)  in  the  degree  of  perfection  with  which 
the  harmony  between  the  subject-matter  and  the 
specific  means  of  expression,  in  every  phase  and  in 
every  aspect  of  the  pictorial  rendering,  is  impressed 
and  gives  to  the  work  of  the  artist  the  spirit  and  soul 
of  a  new  harmonious  creation. 

The  artist  must  thus  have  chosen  for  presentation 
that  subject  and  those  attributes  of  it  best  suited  to 
the  vehicle  or  language  in  which  he  conveys  his  new 
meaning — whether  it  be  in  outline  or  shaded  drawing 
in  line,  in  engraving,  in  etching  or  in  mezzotint,  in 
water-colour  or  in  pastel,  or  in  all  the  varieties  and 
methods  of  oil-painting,  or  even  if  he  choose  mosaic 
or  stained  glass.  His  artistic  tact  and  well-attuned 
imagination  must  lead  him  to  establish  the  perfect 
harmony  between  the  subject-matter  and  the  mode 
of  expression.  Each  technique  has  its  own  essential 
quality  of  appealing  to  the  senses  and  of  evoking  the 
corresponding  impressions  and  moods.  But  the 
highest,  fullest  and  most  varied  vehicle  of  graphic 
expression  up  to  the  present  developed  by  the  graphic 
artist  is  painting.  Here  colour,  line  and  form  are 
harmoniously  blended  for  the  rendering  of  every 
phase  in  the  life  of  nature  and  man,  as  well  as  for  every 
subtle  gradation  of  emotions  and  moods.  While  all 
the  other  graphic  arts  can  in  their  way  render  the 
fullness  and  variety  of  life,  they  are  relatively  limited 
when  compared  with  the  craft  of  the  painter.  These 
very  limitations  may  accentuate  certain  graphic 
aspects  which,  in  their  concentration,  may  more 
readily  respond  to  and  evoke  a  definite  and  special 
15 


210  ESTHETICS,   ART 

harmonious  mood  in  the  spectator.     Not  only,  for 
instance,   does   an  etching  convey  certain   qualities 
in  the  outer  forms  and  scenes  which  the  true  artist 
conveys  in  concentrated  emphasis,  but  this  form  of 
monochrome  presentation  differs  from  those  which, 
by  their  own  peculiar  qualities  of  treatment,  line- 
engraving,   mezzotint  or  aquatint  can  convincingly 
and  harmoniously  produce  by  their  peculiar  technique. 
But  the  technique  of  the  great  painter  affords  him 
a  much  wider  variety  and  fullness   in  the  range  of 
his  expression.     The  perfect  picture  as  a  work  of 
art,  in  the  first  instance,  conveys  or  suggests  the 
subject-matter  and  form  by  "  outline  composition  " 
in  the  broadest  and  simplest  aspects  of  its  structure. 
I  am  far  from  meaning  by  this  that  conventional 
conception  of  "  composition,"  based  chiefly,  if  not 
solely,  on  static  symmetry  (in  which  every  picture  is 
to  be  reduced  in  its  outline  forms  to  the  triangle  or 
pyramid) ;  but  symmetry  modified   and   fused   with 
rhythm  in  producing  the  harmony  of  suggestive  line 
and  the  central  meaning  of  the  subject  composition 
as  a  whole — organic  symmetry — which  is  as  varied 
and  expressive  as  is  life  itself.     The  outline  composi- 
tion, for  instance,  in  a  peaceful  incident  or  scene  is 
to  be  more  reposefully  continuous,  more  uniformly 
horizontal  in  its  dominant  lines  than  a  violent   and 
stormy  scene  or  incident  of  battle  and  strife.     The 
latter  must  impress,   as  it  were,   the  keynote   and 
tone  of  its  intrinsic  nature  by  restless  and  intersected 
lines,  the  quiet  continuity  of  the  horizontal  being 
cut    into    by    perpendiculars    and    diagonals    which 
together  forcibly  and  immediately,  through  the  eye, 
convey  the  impression,  followed  by  the  mood,  of  rest- 
lessness and  violence.     The  same  applies  to  the  grada- 
tion and  inter-relation  between  foreground,  middle 
distance  and  background,  which  on  their  part  again 
tend  to  fix  the  eyes  on  the  points  of  relatively  greater 


PICTORIAL   HARMONY  211 

or  lesser  importance  in  the  organic  relationship  of  the 
scene  or  incident  as  a  whole.  Beyond  this  harmony 
in  composition  of  form  and  relationship  of  lines,  light 
and  shade  and  all  their  gradations,  harmonies  and 
contrasts,  and,  above  all,  colour  with  its  infinite 
varieties  and  relationships,  must  again  be  harmonised, 
so  as  to  contribute  to,  and  fully  express,  on  their 
part,  the  organic  harmony  of  the  incident  or  scene 
which  in  form  and  colour,  pictorially  and  convincingly, 
the  artist  desires  to  present  and  through  which,  by 
every  visual  means,  he  sets  vibrating  the  chords  of 
the  senses  until  they  evoke  a  harmonious  image  in 
the  perception,  in  the  understanding  and  in  the 
emotions  of  the  spectator. 

Such  pictorial  harmony  can  be  found  in  every 
truly  great  work  of  painting.  The  perfect,  simple 
landscape  or  seascape,  conveying  a  general  impression 
of  peace,  quiet  and  repose,  with  its  horizontal 
lines  and  clearly  harmonised  colours  and  tones,  or 
the  wild  romantic  scene  in  which  a  Ruysdael  de- 
lighted (ruined  castles  in  narrow  wooded  gorges,  with 
rushing  waterfalls,  lowering  clouds  through  which 
the  light  bursts  in  contrasts  of  light  and  shade), 
will  convey  by  contrast  such  a  variety  of  pictorial 
effect.  As  I  have  maintained,  music  is  of  all  arts 
the  one  which  most  directly,  if  not  exclusively, 
expresses  pure  harmony,  and  it  is  thus  not  a  mere 
accident  that  painting  borrows  from  music  some  of 
the  terms  to  express  pictorial  harmony,  such  as  the 
word  tone.  We  can  understand  Whistler  and  sym- 
pathise with  him  when  he  gave  to  some  of  his  pastels 
and  water-colours  the  designation  "  Symphony,  white 
and  gold,  etc." 

These  harmonies  are  but  a  few  rudimentary  ele- 
ments in  the  technical  treatment  of  the  work  of  a 
truly  great  painter.  There  is  an  infinite  variety  of 
such  harmonies  in  every  phase  and  aspect  of  his  work. 


212  ESTHETICS,   ART 

Even  the  most  individual  as  well  as  the  most  complex 
meaning,  and  the  associations  and  moods  which  they 
evoke,  whether  the  subject  be  one  from  the  life  of 
nature  or  from  the  life  of  man  and  his  history,  can  be 
expressed  pictorially,  and  such  definite  and  complex 
presentments  are  conveyed  as  fully  in  their  indivi- 
duality as  would  be  their  description  in  words  :  they 
are  conveyed  by  strictly  pictorial  means,  expressing 
that  aspect  which  corresponds  to  and  harmonises 
with  the  vehicle  of  line  and  colour  and  not  of  words. 

To  take  one  particular  instance  :  the  French  heroine 
Joan  of  Arc  and  her  attractive  personality  have 
formed  the  subject  of  endless  records  in  history,  in 
poetry,  drama,  sculpture  and  painting.  Apart  from 
the  literary  form  of  expression,  she  is  most  familiar 
in  the  presentation  of  sculpture,  of  which  the  graceful 
and  yet  strong  equestrian  statue  by  Fremiet,  as  also 
the  smaller  seated  figure  of  the  peasant  girl,  are 
widely  known. 

There  are  endless  historical  paintings  illustrating 
scenes  from  her  life.  Few  of  these,  however,  will 
convey  to  us  the  soul  of  her  personality,  the  central 
spiritual  keynote  in  the  exultation  of  the  peasant 
girl  which  made  her  the  saintly  heroine  of  France. 
No  doubt  a  full  historical  record  entering  into  her 
inner  and  outer  history,  with  the  aid  of  psychological 
analysis,  may  approximately  convey  to  us  a  full 
impression.  So  too  with  regard  to  poetry  and  the 
drama.  But  the  paintings  which  forcibly  record 
some  of  the  great  scenes  of  her  military  leadership  and 
of  her  trial,  while  suggesting  to  us  the  deep  significance 
of  the  historical  figure  she  became,  cannot  by  them- 
selves adequately  account  for  the  exalted  poetry  of 
her  inner  life  and  development.  But  the  picture  by 
Bastien-Lepage  has  seized  upon,  and  expresses  fully, 
by  purely  pictorial  means,  the  feelings,  the  complexity 
and  subtlety  of  her  inner  history,  and  in  a  manner 


JOAN   OF   ARC  213 

so  stirring  and  so  fully  harmonising  with  the  poetic 
mood  of  that  personality,  that  by  no  other  means 
could  the  same  exalted  aim  be  achieved.  In  his 
picture  we  see  the  simple  French  country  maiden  in 
the  garden  of  her  home,  standing  among  all  the 
harmoniously  toned  greenery  in  solitary  communion 
with  her  own  visions.  She  stands  entranced  by  what 
she  sees  ;  and  what  she  sees  is  the  faintly  drawn  image 
floating  in  the  air  before  her  of  her  own  self  in  armour, 
as  subsequently  she  led  the  armies  of  France.  No 
attempt  at  verbal  paraphrase  can  approach  in 
adequacy  the  impression  which  the  picture  produces. 
But  the  painter  has  done  this,  not  from  the  sculp- 
turesque point  of  view,  by  painting  a  figure  in  armour, 
with  correctly  rendered  appurtenances  of  her  warlike 
craft,  and  by  giving  dramatic  expression  to  her  face  ; 
nor  in  a  composition  of  many  figures  like  the  scene  on 
a  stage  in  which  a  dramatic  incident  of  her  life  is 
exposed.  He  has  conveyed  his  idea  by  the  composi- 
tion in  outline,  in  the  gradation  of  importance  of  the 
central  figure  and  her  surroundings,  in  the  plain 
sober  monotony  of  her  humble  country  life,  in  the 
character  of  her  poor  peasant  dress  and  the  colour 
and  tone  of  it,  and,  finally,  in  the  exalted  visionary 
expression  of  her  countenance,  with  the  shadowy 
indication  of  the  vision  floating  before  her — all 
harmonising  into  a  peaceful  and  idyllic  mood,  big 
with  the  suggestion  of  the  heroic  struggle  to  which 
her  loneliness  led  her.  All  these  visual  attributes 
of  a  most  complicated  psychical  process  combine  to 
convey  to  the  spectator  of  this  picture  one  of  the  most 
striking  heroic  figures  in  the  history  of  mankind. 

I  can  recall  visually  a  picture  called  Jeanne  d'Arc 
in  the  Royal  Academy  Exhibition  in  London  during 
the  early  eighties  of  the  last  century,  though  I  cannot 
recall  the  name  of  the  artist.  The  actual  painting 
did  not  attain  the  excellence  to  be  found  in  the  work 


214  ESTHETICS,   ART 

of  Bastien-Lepage.  But  it  had,  in  common  with 
that  great  picture,  the  quality  of  selecting  truly 
pictorial  means  to  express  most  individual  and 
complex  aspects  of  human  character  and  situations 
of  life.  Outline  and  inner  composition,  tonality  and 
values  of  colour,  the  character  of  the  surrounding 
landscape  or  figures  in  their  inter-relation  and 
gradation  as  impressing  the  central  idea — all  these 
must  be  harmonised  by  the  painter.  The  true  painter 
sees  everything  which  he  approaches  as  an  artist  in 
its  visual  expression  by  means  of  form  and  colour, 
even  the  most  abstract  and  subtle  ideas,  as  the 
sculptor  sees  them  in  pure  form,  the  musician  in 
rhythm  and  melody,  and  as  the  poet's 

brains  beat  into  rhythm  ;  you  tell 
What  we  feel  only  ;   you  expressed 
You  hold  things  beautiful  the  best, 
And  place  them  in  rhyme  so,  side  by  side. 

The  picture  of  Jeanne  d'Arc  which  I  thus  recall 
consisted  in  the  main  of  a  landscape  expressive  of 
bleakness,  loneliness  and  melancholy.  A  sterile  hill- 
top, far  from  habitation  or  the  sounds  of  life  and 
companionship,  with  just  enough  stray  pasture  for 
the  browsing  sheep,  and  among  them  a  comparatively 
small  figure  in  the  vastness  of  the  picture  of  large 
dimensions.  There  kneels  a  solitary  shepherd -girl 
gazing  at  the  sky  with  head  thrown  back  and  arms 
outstretched,  as  through  the  mass  of  grey  clouds  a 
sunbeam  bursts  forth,  sending  its  dazzling  rays  into 
her  upgazing  eyes.  The  surroundings  of  this  desolate 
scene,  in  which  a  lonely  child  with  ardent  heart  and 
glowing  imagination  is  lifted  up  in  mystical  exaltation 
to  see  the  vision  of  a  divine  mission  which  comes  to 
her  from  above,  within  the  meanness  and  misery  of 
her  sordid  and  hard  life,  pictorially  tell  the  story,  or 
at  least  stimulate  the  imagination  of  the  spectator 
emotionally  to  experience  what  the  definite  name  of 


INDIVIDUAL   INTERPRETATION  215 

Jeanne  d'Arc  may  have  prepared  his  intelligence  to 
apprehend  concerning  her  from  the  historical  facts 
recorded. 

It  is  thus  that  the  infinite  variety  of  "  meanings  " 
receive  their  individual  interpretation  through  the 
imaginative  and  emotional  channels  of  each  painter's 
rendering  of  pictorial  harmony. 

There  is  thus  an  additional  aesthetic  quality  and 
source  of  pleasure  to  be  derived  from  the  apprehension 
of  the  distinctively  individual  interpretations  of 
various  artists  and  their  modes  of  pictorial  expression 
— their  style.  A  Giotto  and  a  Mantegna,  a  Titian 
and  a  Raphael,  a  Botticelli  and  a  Leonardo  da  Vinci, 
a  Van  Eyck  and  a  Rembrandt,  a  Velazquez  and  a 
Murillo,  a  David  and  an  Ingres,  a  Courbet  and  a  Manet, 
a  Gainsborough,  a  Watts,  and  a  Whistler — while  all 
differ  essentially  in  their  initial  conception  of  the  same 
subject  and  in  the  pictorial  method  by  which  they 
convey  it,  the  recognition  of  such  individual  style 
through  our  perceptive  and  aesthetic  faculties  is  in 
itself  a  source  of  aesthetic  pleasure.  But  we  must 
always  guard  against  confusing  this  definite  pictorial 
quality  in  each  work  with  the  "  biographical  "  interest 
which  insidiously  leads  us  to  concoct  a  personal  story 
round  the  life  of  the  artist,  blending  this  story  of  his 
own  with  the  work  itself  as  an  added  element  of 
pictorial  quality  and  interest,  while  it  has  nothing  to 
do  with  the  work  of  art  before  us — in  fact,  which  in 
so  far  prejudices  and  weakens  truly  aesthetic  observa- 
tion and  appreciation  of  the  work  as  such.  It  is 
always  the  work  of  art  itself  and  not  the  personality 
of  the  maker  of  it,  or  the  methods  and  means  by  which 
he  attains  his  effects,  which  produces  the  full  aesthetic 
appreciation  of  art. 

Further,  there  is  a  distinctly  aesthetic  quality 
and  additional  interest  inherent  in  the  common 
character  and  delicate  differences  within  a  particular 


216  AESTHETICS,   ART 

school  of  art.  The  Florentine  and  Venetian,  the 
Umbrian,  Milanese  and  Bolognese  schools  of  Italian 
painting  have  their  common  qualities  and  their 
differences  of  relationships  within  themselves  ;  and 
the  recognition  of  these  individual  styles,  inherent 
in  the  actual  quality  of  the  work,  is  a  legitimate 
source  of  aesthetic  appreciativeness. 

There  further  exists  the  aesthetic  correlative  of  our 
"  historic  sense  "  and  its  appreciativeness,  which 
convey  to  us  the  charm  of  the  "  primitive,"  even  when 
it  means  the  comparative  imperfections  of  early 
peoples  struggling  to  express  a  truly  artistic  emotion 
and  thought.  This  again  adds  to  the  wealth  of 
appreciative  qualities  which  the  great  works  of  art 
convey  to  us.  We  must  always  maintain  historic 
catholicity  ;  and,  as  the  appreciation  of  the  works 
manifesting  the  fullest  technical  freedom  must  not 
debar  us  from  the  appreciation  of  the  earlier  primitive 
or  archaic  stages  with  their  peculiar  charm,  so,  still 
less,  must  we  allow  ourselves  to  be  misled  into  that 
self-satisfied  and  "  precious  "  narrowness  and  ex- 
clusiveness  which  turns  against  and  depreciates  full 
technical  freedom  and  perfection  because  it  is  able 
to  appreciate  the  earlier  forms  and  stages.  Finally, 
another  source  of  aesthetic  appreciativeness  lies  in  the 
recognition  or  suggestion  of  national  or  ethnological 
difference  of  character  in  the  history  of  human  artistic 
endeavour.  We  must  be  able  fully  to  realise  and  to 
appreciate  the  spirit  of  the  Near  and  Far  East  in 
Oriental  Art,  not  only  in  the  ancient  art  of  Egypt  and 
Syria,  of  China  and  Japan,  but  of  such  exquisite 
artistry  as  is,  for  instance,  betrayed  in  Persian  and 
in  Indian  miniature  paintings,  to  see  these  qualities 
of  national  artistic  expression  as  contrasted  with  the 
classical  art  of  ancient  Greece  and  Rome  ;  to  enter 
into  the  spirit  of  the  religious  art  in  the  Byzantine 
and  Gothic  periods,  in  the  mosaics  of  Ravenna, 


NATIONAL  AND  HISTORICAL  CHARACTER    217 

Palermo  and  Santa  Maria  Maggiore,  as  well  as 
mediaeval  paintings  and  drawings  ;  to  recognise 
the  strong,  yet  delicate,  characterisation  of  early 
German  art,  culminating  in  Cranach,  Dlirer  and 
Holbein,  and  all  the  kindred,  and  still  distinct, 
exquisite  virility  of  the  early  Flemish  and  Northern 
French  primitives,  centring  round  the  Van  Eycks, 
Roger  van  der  Weyden,  Memling,  van  der  Goes,  and 
their  French  primitives  cousins,  Clouet  and  his  school  ; 
to  feel  the  highly  significant  contrast  of,  let  us  say, 
the  national  art  of  the  sixteenth  and  seventeenth 
centuries  in  France,  the  paintings  of  a  Watteau, 
Boucher,  Lancret,  down  to  a  Fragonard,  compared 
with  the  Hispano-Mauresque  vigour  of  Spanish  paint- 
ing from  Velazquez  and  El  Greco  down  to  Goya ; 
until,  through  the  exuberant  technical  mastery  and 
stupendous  pictorial  expressiveness  of  a  Rubens, 
refined  into  courtly  grace  by  a  Van  Dyck,  we  cross  the 
Channel  to  find  the  full  expression  of  British  social 
refinement  in  a  Gainsborough,  Reynolds,  Romney, 
Hoppner  and  Raeburn  !  Again,  we  may  turn  to  the 
more  recent  development  of  landscape  painting  and 
note,  with  the  precedent  remarkable  achievements 
of  a  Claude  Lorrain  and  Hobbema,  those  of  Gains- 
borough and  Wilson,  and  the  immortal  Turner  and 
Constable,  and  the  contemporary  and  succeeding 
development  of  English  water-colourists  and  land- 
scape painters  in  oil  ;  and  back  again  to  France  with 
the  great  representatives  of  the  Barbizon  school — the 
Corots  and  Daubignys,  Rousseau,  Diaz — until  we 
come  to  the  modern  impressionists  in  France  and 
England  and  in  other  countries,  Renoir  and  Manet, 
Cezanne  and  Whistler,  their  contemporaries  and 
followers.  Surely  the  recognition  of  the  purely 
pictorial  expression  of  these  national  characteristic 
interpretations  of  nature  and  life  is  an  additional 
source  of  aesthetic  wealth  ! 


218  ESTHETICS,   ART 

The  appreciative  public  can  be  trained,  and  can 
train  itself,  to  this  catholicity  of  artistic  appreciation  ; 
and  the  productive  artist  may  find  artistic  stimulation 
and  inspiration  from  his  responsiveness  to  the  works 
of  the  best  in  all  periods,  to  the  different  schools,  to 
the  different  nationalities,  even  of  remote  ethnological 
characteristic  units,  and  may  thus  modify  his  own 
taste  and  the  characteristic  interpretation  of  things 
in  nature  and  life.  But,  within  all  this  catholicity- 
historical,  geographical,  ethnological,  universal — 
which  represents  the  wealth  of  our  Western  civilised, 
spiritual  and  intellectual  life,  the  creative  artist 
must  ever  remember  that  he  must,  above  all,  become 
a  truthful,  wholly  sincere  and  adequate  exponent  of 
the  leading  taste  of  his  own  age  and  of  the  historical, 
social,  moral  and  intellectual  spirit  of  that  age,  what- 
ever passing  inspirations,  fancies  or  fashions  he  may 
borrow  from  alien  sources  for  the  nonce.  To  be  thus 
fully  and  adequately  expressive  of  the  taste  of  a 
definite  period  and  social  group  or  nationality,  through 
the  channels  of  his  special  art,  will  ever  remain  the 
chief  function  of  the  true  artist  and  will  thus  lead 
eventually  to  the  evolution  of  the  highest  standards 
of  taste. 

(c)  THE  LITERARY  ARTS 

We  have  seen  in  the  chapter  on  Epistemology  how 
the  principle  of  all  knowledge  must  ultimately  be 
reduced  to  Harmonism.  More  directly  this  principle 
is  active  and  effective  in  the  discovery  of  truth  and 
especially  in  the  exposition  of  scientific  truths.  Even 
in  works  dealing  with  logic  and  abstract  philosophy 
we  have  noted  how  the  composition  of  such  works 
manifests  the  principles  of  form  as  a  dominant 
element  in  the  exposition,  so  that  in  the  construction 
of  the  whole  work  of  any  main  argument,  the  sen- 
tences, paragraphs,  chapters  bear  a  distinct  formal 


STYLE   IN   ALL  WRITING  219 

relation  to  one  another,  and  maintain  a  certain  pro- 
portion in  length  and  sequence  which  makes  the  work 
of  such  writers  closely  akin  to  that  of  an  architect, 
a  sculptor,  or  a  painter,  in  presenting  an  organic  and 
harmonious  unity  of  composition.  We  can  even  note 
in  the  form  and  length  of  the  paragraphs  in  a  work 
of  Herbert  Spencer  and  their  inter-relation  to  one 
another,  how  they  are  essentially  of  the  same  nature 
as  the  parts  of  some  composition  of  literary  or  musical 
art,  architecture,  sculpture  or  painting. 

Besides  these,  however,  we  have,  even  in  writings 
which  are  primarily  meant  to  satisfy  the  sense  of 
truth,  to  convey  accurate  information,  and  not  to 
produce  aesthetic  emotions  through  the  eye  or  ear, 
passages  which  forcibly  impress  us  with  the  formal 
adequacy,  if  not  beauty,  of  what  we  call  style,  in  which 
the  diction  itself,  by  its  harmonious  perfection,  directly 
produces  aesthetic  satisfaction  and  pleasure.  Such 
passages  may  even,  in  their  limpid  clearness  or  in  their 
well-proportioned  ornateness,  evoke  our  admiration. 
When  words  are  not  written,  but  spoken,  this  form  of 
exposition,  ultimately  meant  to  convince,  does  this 
greatly,  if  not  wholly,  by  aesthetic  means  and  through 
the  channels  of  our  aesthetic  sense  and  emotions.  It  has 
then  led  to  the  art  of  oratory,  and  to  the  theory  and 
practice  of  rhetoric,  so  highly  developed  throughout 
the  ages  in  distinct  and  systematic  theory  and  practice. 
Moreover,  with  almost  every  prose-writer  in  the 
domain  of  "  science  "  aiming  at  the  establishment 
and  communication  of  laws  of  nature  and: thought, 
what  must  be  called  their  individual  "  styles  "  are 
almost  as  clearly  marked  as  the  styles  among  painters 
and  sculptors,  to  which  we  have  referred  in  the 
previous  chapter.  I  have  endeavoured  elsewhere ! 

1  The  Balance  of  Emotion  and  Intellect,  I.e. 

»  The  Work  of  John  Ruskin,  p.  8  seq.,  "  Ruskin  as    a  Writer  and 
Prose  Poet  "  (Harper  &  Bros.,  1893). 


220  ESTHETICS,   ART 

to  analyse  the  very  marked  and  individual  style, 
almost  in  its  musical  or  lyrical  quality,  of  Ruskin's 
prose.  While  there  is  thus  a  normal  standard  and 
type  of  impersonal  ideal  perfection  in  prose-writing 
in  the  epistemological  sphere  (what  the  ancient  Greeks 
called  lexis  and  rhetoric),  and  while  we  can  thus 
discern  the  individual  style  of  such  writers — a  clearly 
artistic  characteristic  of  theirs — the  form  and  diction 
of  their  "  style  "  must  adapt  themselves  to  the 
nature  of  the  definite  subjects  or  thoughts  which  they 
are  conveying  and  harmonise  with  the  subject-matter. 
This  latter  achievement  again  depends  especially  and 
directly  on  aesthetic  principles  of  harmonism. 

But,  in  spite  of  this  evidence  of  the  infusion  or 
intrusion  of  the  aesthetic  elements  into  scientific 
methods  and  exposition,  the  fact  remains  that 
language  is  used  directly  and  ultimately  to  convey 
truth,  meaning,  and  not  form.  Form  is  distinctly 
ancillary  to  the  establishment  of  truth,  and  in  its 
"  exposition  "  it  is  not  the  essential  element  itself 
filling  the  consciousness  of  the  reader  or  hearer. 
Now,  we  have  already  seen  how  in  art,  form — into 
whatever  material  it  is  put — is  the  essential  element 
in  the  new  creation.  When  thus  language  is  used 
as  the  material  means  of  embodying  formal  harmony, 
appealing  to,  and  satisfying,  the  aesthetic  instinct 
directly,  as  its  essential  aim,  we  are  in  the  domain  of 
Literary  Art.  Though  the  claims  of  language  as  a 
means  of  communicating  impressions  and  thoughts 
have  been  greatly  exaggerated  (not  only  by  philolo- 
gists but  by  psychologists  and  philosophers),  the  fact 
remains  that  language  is  the  chief  vehicle  for  the  direct 
expression  of  meaning  and  that  meaning  cannot  be 
wholly  dissociated  from  words.  Tones  (outside  of 
words),  colours,  as  well  as  lines,  have  no  meaning  in 
themselves.  We  have  thus  seen  how  in  music,  and 
in  what  we  called  Ornamentative  Art,  tones  and 


LYRICAL   POETRY  221 

lines  could  produce  by  their  harmonious  distribution 
and  composition  what  we  call  Pure  Art.  This  may 
also  be  the  case  in  the  meaningless  babbling  or  sing- 
song stringing  together  of  words,  in  metre  or  rhythmical 
sequence,  by  children.  An  instance  of  this  may  be 
taken  from  that  delightful  writer  Lewis  Carroll — 

'Twas  brillig,  and  the  slithy  toves 

Did  gyre  and  gimble  in  the  wabe  : 
All  mimsy  were  the  borogroves. 

And  the  mome  raths  outgrabe. 

But  these  words  are  meaningless  and  are  treated  as 
mere  tones. 

But  among  the  "  Arts  of  Meaning,"  the  literary 
arts,  with  their  unlimited  extent  and  intent  of  con- 
veying meanings,  the  arts  of  poetry  and  prose,  have 
always  been,  and  will  always  be,  the  central  arts  of 
meaning,  encompassing  the  whole  range  of  human 
experience  of  nature,  life  and  thought. 

LYRICAL  POETRY 

The  literary  arts  approach  nearest  to  the  pure  form 
of  art  in  Lyrical  Poetry.  As  the  name  indicates,  it 
is  nearest  to  music,  closely  allied  to  the  song.  But, 
while  gaining  in  the  definiteness  with  which  it  conveys 
meaning,  it  loses  some  of  the  more  manifest  qualities 
whereby  music  directly  produces  aesthetic  emotions  ; 
for,  though  it  conveys  time  and  measure  through 
metre  and  rhythm  and  in  some  forms  of  assonance, 
alliteration,  and  rhyme,  which  approach  melody  in 
their  effect,  and  though  the  rise  and  fall  of  the  voice 
reciting  them  conveys  variations  of  sound  which 
approach  melody,  they  are  not  melody  in  the  full 
sense  of  that  term.  By  analogy  we  may  say  that 
lyrical  poetry  more  or  less  takes  a  similar  position  in 
the  musical  song  to  melody  which  black-and-white 
drawing  or  engraving  holds  to  colour-painting.  Metre, 


222  ESTHETICS,   ART 

rhythm,  rhyme,  alliteration,  the  sound-quality  of 
words,  their  succession  and  inter-relation,  all  work 
together  to  produce  harmony  of  sound  which  gives  a 
distinctly  artistic  unity  and  life. 

In  its  simplest  form,  the  folk-song,  the  chanson,  lied 
(perhaps  originally  coupled  with  music),  the  lines  and 
verses  follow  a  symmetrical  principle  in  metre  and 
rhythm  which  would  naturally  lead  the  human  voice 
to  recite  them  in  complete  symmetry.  But,  soon 
rhythmical  varieties  relieve  it  from  the  more  mechani- 
cal constraint  of  pure  symmetry  and  convert  the 
static  symmetry  into  organic  or  dynamic  symmetry, 
giving  to  it  greater  freedom  of  life  and  variety  of 
movement.1  But  the  leading  characteristic  of  lyrics 
which  retain  the  simplicity  of  the  people's  song  is 
chiefly  to  be  found  in  the  fact  that  their  truly  lyrical 
quality  depends  upon  the  succession  of  a  group  of 
words  in  a  line,  a  strophe  or  a  verse,  in  metrical 
subdivisions  subordinated  to  one  larger  metrical 
unit  as  a  whole.  The  simple  folk-song  is  thus  in  later 
times  adopted  as,  perhaps  the  purest  lyrical  form  in 
poetry  by  even  some  of  the  greatest  of  poets.  The 
classic  examples  of  such  simple  songs  are,  for  in- 
stance, to  be  found  in  some  lyrics  of  Heine,  Goethe, 
Burns,  Blake,  Byron  and  Wordsworth,  as  well  as  in 
B^ranger,  de  Musset  and  Lamartine.  But  even  from 
the  earliest  times  this  purely  lyrical  form  is  extended 
and  diversified  as  the  feeling  for  language  itself 
develops  and  as  civilisation  and  culture  rise  above 
the  simpler  conditions  of  pure  folk-life.  The  metres 
and  verses  then  become  much  more  complicated  and 
subtle,  and  advanced  artistic  appreciativeness  pro- 
duces more  complex  and  developed  aesthetic  plea- 
sures. Especially  in  the  classical  poets  Pindar  and 
Horace,  in  the  choral  odes  of  the  Greek  dramatists, 

i  We  have  noted  a  similar  process  in  the  advance  from  archaic  to 
free  sculpture. 


RHYME,   METRE,  RHYTHM  223 

in  Victor  Hugo,  Gautier,  Verlaine,  and  the  modern 
French  lyricists,  such  complexities  and  variations 
of  metre  and  rhythm  produce  at  once  the  strongest 
and  the  most  delicate  lyrical  qualities.  This  extends 
also  to  the  sound-quality  of  single  words  themselves, 
beyond  the  general  metrical  or  rhythmical  alliteration 
and  rhymed  harmonies  of  distinct  groups  of  words 
taken  together.  This  is  so  in  the  earlier  poets  whom 
we  have  just  mentioned,  but  becomes  especially 
noticeable  in  the  works  of  modern  lyricists,  like 
Shelley,  Keats  and  Swinburne.  My  meaning  may  be 
illustrated  by  quoting  from  memory  what  I  once  had 
the  privilege  of  hearing  Tennyson  say  in  dwelling 
upon  the  intrinsic  quality  of  single  words.  After 
enumerating  a  number  of  such  "  beautiful  "  words 
as  "  lullaby,"  he  turned  to  the  peculiar  expressive 
quality  of  words  not  intrinsically  melodious,  and 
recited  a  line  ending  with  the  four  monosyllables 
"  and  stamp  him  flat,"  giving  a  deep  and  abrupt 
ending  to  the  last  word  as  expressive  of  its  significant 
sound.  Per  contra,  we  might  single  out  the  line  from 
Shelley's  "  Ode  to  the  West  Wind  "— 

"  Than  thou,  O  uncontrollable  !    if  even 
I  were  as  in  my  boyhood,  and  could  be,"  etc. 

In  this  the  long-drawn  word  "  uncontrollable,"  especi- 
ally when  the  line  was  preceded  by  rapidly  moving 
rhythm  leading  to  this  more  reposeful  climax,  has 
the  strongest  lyrical  effect. 

Now,  these  lyrical  elements  correspond  to  and 
convey  various  human  emotions.  As  we  noted  in 
the  development  of  music  and  the  musical  song,  they 
are  expressive  of  all  the  scale  of  human  emotions, 
from  joy  to  sadness,  and  of  the  typical  experiences 
and  events  in  human  life.  So  there  is  a  form  of 
lyrical  poetry  which  corresponds  to  the  dance,  as  the 
elegy  corresponds  to  the  dirge,  with  all  varieties  and 


224  AESTHETICS,   ART 

shadings  of  emotional  life  between  them  ;  until  we 
come  to  definite  leading  ideas  and  deeper  thoughts 
of  life  which  inspire  the  poet  and  move  him  to  embody 
them  in  a  harmonious  unit  of  form.  Such,  for 
instance,  is  the  function  of  the  sonnet,  which  might 
almost  be  classed  in  the  group  of  "  didactic  "  poetry, 
from  the  fact  that  it  generally  conveys,  in  purely 
artistic  form,  some  wider,  loftier,  or  deeper  idea. 

We  must  thus  note  that  the  lyrical  form  of  poetry 
enters  into  every  aspect  of  life  and  thought,  as  it  also 
is  fused  with  and  forms  a  part  of  all  the  other  sub- 
divisions of  poetry  which  are  distinguished  by  more 
definite  aims  in  the  attitude  of  the  poet  facing  the 
world    of    human    experiences    and    feelings.     Such 
broad  subdivisions  are,  in  the  first  place,  the  epical, 
narrative  and  descriptive  poetry,  in  which,  by  means 
of  harmonious  composition  of  the  work  as  a  whole, 
as  well  as  of  all  its  parts  one   to   another  and  to 
the   whole,  retaining  throughout    the    dominance  of 
pure  form,  events,  experiences  and    descriptions    of 
scenes  are  recorded.     But  even  in  these  continuous 
narratives  or  descriptions  we  can  again  single  out 
elements  which  in  themselves  are  more  purely  lyrical. 
Thus  in  Homer  and  in  Vergil  passages  can  be  selected 
which   are   superlatively   lyrical   within   the   general 
epical  continuity.     In  Dante  and  in  Milton  this  power 
of  enforcing  the  presentation  of  great  scenes,  deep 
thoughts  and  vast  emotions  by  the  perfect  harmony 
of  sound  in  the  words  chosen  and  the  rhythm  which 
connects  them  together,  marks  one  of  the  greatest 
achievements  of  literary  art.     So  also  in  certain  well- 
known  passages   in   which   the  onomatopoeic  quality 
of  words  and  a  succession  of  a  limited  number  of 
words  reproduce  or  suggest  definite  sounds  or  move- 
ments in  life  and  nature.     In  descriptive  poetry  the 
same  lyrical  means  (recalling  what  we  have  before 
noted  in  painting  with  regard  to  the  harmony  in  out- 


LYRICAL   HARMONY  225 

line  and  internal  composition,  as  well  as  in  tone  and 
relationship  of  colouring)  are  used  to  convey,  by  pure 
harmony  of  sound,  the  distinctive  character  and  unity 
of  scenery  and  mood,  the  leading  features  of  the  scenes 
described,  and  to  weld  them  into  vital  unity  and  har- 
mony of  mood  by  means  of  the  more  emotional 
character  of  sound.  Two  contrasted  instances  will 
illustrate  my  meaning.  I  wish  to  place  side  by  side 
for  comparison  the  passage  from  the  opening  of 
Browning's  "Flight  of  the  Duchess,"  in  which  the 
rough  gamekeeper  describes  the  wild  country  of  his 
Duke,  and  one  verse  from  Wordsworth's  "  Ruth."  l 

Ours  is  a  great  wild  country  : 

If  you  climb  to  our  castle's  top, 

I  don't  see  where  your  eye  can  stop  ; 

For  when  you've  passed  the  corn-field  country, 

Where  vineyards  leave  off,  flocks  are  packed, 

And  sheep-range  leads  to  cattle-tract, 

And  cattle-tract  to  open-chase. 

And  open-chase  to  the  very  base 

O'  the  mountain,  where,  at  a  funeral  pace. 

Round  about,  solemn  and  slow, 

One  by  one,  row  after  row. 

Up  and  up  the  pine-trees  go, 

So,  like  black  priests  up,  and  so 

Down  the  other  side  again 

To  another  greater,  wilder  country. 

That's  one  vast  red  drear  burnt-up  plain, 

Branched  through  and  through  with  many  a  vein 

Whence  iron's  dug,  and  copper's  dealt ; 

Look  right,  look  left,  look  straight  before, — 

Beneath  they  mine,  above  they  smelt, 

Copper-ore  and  iron-ore, 

And  forge  and  furnace  mould  and  melt, 

And  so  on,  more  and  ever  more, 

Till,  at  the  last,  for  a  bounding  belt. 

Comes  the  salt  sand  hoar  of  the  great  sea-shore, 

— And  the  whole  is  our  Duke's  country  ! 

BROWNING:  Flight  of  ihe  Duchess. 

The  youth  of  green  savannas  spake, 
And  many  an  endless,  endless  lake, 

i  I  must  thank  Mrs.  Bury  for  suggesting  Wordsworth's  poem  to  me. 
16 


226  ESTHETICS,    ART 


With  all  its  fairy  crowds 
Of  islands  that  together  lie 
As  quietly  as  spots  of  sky 
Among  the  evening  clouds. 

WORDSWORTH:  Ruth. 


Note  the  contrast  in  outline  composition  :  the 
jagged  and  abruptly  varied  general  effect  of  Brown- 
ing's word-landscape  and  word -music  and  the  even, 
rhythmical  and  melodious  flow  of  the  verse  from 
Wordsworth.  When  we  look  more  closely  in  detail 
to  the  musical  character  in  the  description  of  the 
wild  country  of  the  Duke,  note  the  broad,  simple 
sweep  of  line,  in  measured  emphasis,  of  the  first  six 
words,  after  which  there  is  a  pause,  and  we  are  then 
carried  on  in  rapid  sweep,  growing  more  rapid  and 
breathless  in  its  variety  and  contrasts  until  we  arrive 
at  the  very  base  of  the  great  mountains.  Here,  again, 
breath  is  taken  for  a  new  vigorous  ascent,  at  first 
"  solemn  and  slow,  one  by  one,  etc.,"  conveying  the 
regular  ascending  growth  of  the  pine-trees — "  up  and 
up  " — and  then,  at  the  top  we  pause  with  the  words 
"  and  so,"  whence  follows  the  rapid  downward  rush 
to  a  greater,  wilder  country,  to  a  "  vast  red  drear 
burnt-up  "  mining  country,  with  its  restless  unceasing 
activity  above  and  below  the  soil,  in  staccato,  broken 
rhythm,  hurrying  until  we  reach  the  end  of  our 
rushing  journey  and  face  "  the  salt  sand  hoar  of  the 
great  sea-shore,"  alliteration  of  the  line  and  the 
additional  rhyme  of  "  hoar  "  and  "  shore  "  inducing 
a  pause. 

Contrast  with  this  Wordsworth's  verses  with  the 
simple  and  restfully  harmonious  flow  of  words  and 
rhymes,  the  very  quality  of  such  a  word  as  "  savanna," 
the  repetition  of  the  word  "  endless  "  and  its  own 
specific  quality,  the  alliteration  in  "  islands  "  and 
11  lie  "  in  the  fourth  line,  the  dwelling  rhythm  in  the 
beautiful  word  "  quietly,"  and  the  perfect  peaceful 


LYRICAL  MOODS  227 

harmony  of  the  whole,  lulling  our  hearing  and  our 
own  mood  into  harmonious  and  melodious  repose.1 

Even  in  didactic  poetry,  so  called,  we  have  already 
noted  the  function  of  the  sonnet  in  conveying  con- 
centrated thought  through  channels  of  art.  Shake- 
speare's dramas  are  not  only  interspersed  with 
purely  lyrical  poems,  but  undoubtedly  one  of  the 
most  striking  and  lasting  qualities  of  his  work  lies  in 
the  great  truths  which,  in  masterly  form,  he  embodies 
in  many  passages  which  have  furnished  the  world  with 
a  familiar  body  of  great  truths  fused  into  the  perfect 

1  Innumerable  instances  from  the  works  of  the  great  English  poets 
could  be  given,  as  well  as  (besides  the  great  Greek  and  Latin  poets)  in 
the  literature  of  other  European  languages.  I  may  single  out  a  few 
which  occur  to  me  as  being  striking  illustrations  of  the  point  before  us. 
Read  Victor  Hugo's  poem  "  Les  Djinns,"  with  its  masterly  rendering 
of  awfully  mysterious  movement  in  shorter  and  longer  verses,  and 
contrast  this  with  the  exquisitely  peaceful  and  melancholy  rhythm  of 
de  Musset's  lines,  beginning  "  Mes  chers  amis,  quand  je  mourrai," 
placed  upon  his  tomb.  Read  the  description  of  the  Maelstrom  in  Schiller's 
' '  Der  Taucher  " — "  Und  es  wallet  und  siedet  und  brauset  und  zischt,  "etc. 
(the  English  translation  of  Bulwer's — the  first  Lord  Lytton — "  And  it 
bubbles  and  seethes  and  it  hisses  and  roars,"  gives  a  most  remarkable 
rendering  of  the  whole  poem),  and  contrast  it  with  Goethe's  simple  lines, 
"  Ueber  alien  Gipfeln  ist  Ruh,"  etc.  Take  any  of  the  descriptions  of  the 
awful  scenes  in  the  "  Inferno  "  of  Dante  and  contrast  them  with 
Carducci's  poem  beginning  "T'amo,  opio  bove  "  (note  the  attribute  pio 
in  sound  and  meaning). 

I  cannot  resist  drawing  attention  to  one  of  the  finest  lyrical  poems 
of  Longfellow,  which  I  have  never  seen  or  heard  as  being  singled  out 
or  commented  upon,  called  "  Snowflakes  "  : 

Out  of  the  bosom  of  the  Air, 

Out  of  the  cloud-folds  of  her  garments  shaken, 
Over  the  woodlands  brown  and  bare, 
Over  the  harvest-fields  forsaken, 
Silent,  and  soft,  and  slow 
Descends  the  snow. 

This  is  the  poem  of  the  air, 

Slowly  in  silent  syllables  recorded  ; 
This  is  the  secret  of  despair, 

Long  in  its  cloudy  bosom  hoarded, 
Now  whispered  and  revealed 
To  wood  and  field. 


228  AESTHETICS,   ART 

form  of  his  harmonious  diction.1  So  with  Pope  and 
with  Wordsworth;  while  Matthew  Arnold's  ''Self- 
dependence  "  and  Tennyson's  "  In  Memoriam,"  Brown- 
ing's "Paracelsus  "  and  "  A  Grammarian's  Funeral,"  as 
well  as  Kipling's  "  If,"  in  their  distinctive  and  charac- 
teristic differences  of  form  are  eminent  instances  of 
such  didactic  poetry. 

THE  DRAMA 

One  of  the  greatest  achievements  of  literary  art  is 
to  be  found  in  the  creation  of  the  drama.  The  drama 
is  not  merely  to  be  read  or  heard,  but  is  to  be  acted 
and  directly  apprehended  as  action.  It  is  to  be  heard 
and  seen.  No  doubt  there  are  also  written  poems 
which  are  distinctly  dramatic  in  character,  such,  for 
instance,  as  Browning's  dramatic  Romances  and  Idylls 
and  The  Ring  and  the  Book,  and,  among  contemporary 
works,  the  remarkable  poems  of  Masefield.  In  these 
works  definite  action,  in  its  setting  and  striking  situa- 
tions in  life,  is  conveyed,  not  purely  in  epical  de- 
scription, but  with  dramatic  methods,  strengthened 
by  the  almost  lyrical  quality  of  the  verse.  But  it 
must  always  be  remembered  that  the  drama  itself 
is  not  to  be  read,  but  to  be  acted  on  a  stage.  The 
scenes  are  brought  before  the  audience  in  their 
natural  surroundings — scenery,  costumes  and  all  the 
appurtenances  of  the  stage  strengthen  illusion. 
Now,  in  the  earlier  drama,  these  scenic  appurtenances 
were  frequently  merely  suggested  rather  than  fully 
produced.  Such  more  or  less  conventional  and 
symbolic  stimuli  as  suggestions  through  the  eye  to 
the  imagination  perform  their  function  to  a  certain 
degree,  and  may  even  at  times  give  freer  play  and 
more  relief  to  the  action  and  diction  of  the  performers 

i  The  same  applies  to  Goethe's  "  Faust "  and  other  poems,  to  Schiller's 
dramas  and  epic  poems,  to  Racine,  Corneille,  Voltaire — in  fact,  to  all 
great  poets  of  the  world. 


SCENERY    STRENGTHENING   ILLUSION     229 

themselves  ;  so  that  attempts  have  been  made  to 
produce  the  more  archaic  forms  of  stage  production 
and  to  give  an  added  flavour  of  historical  character, 
if  not  remoteness,  to  actual  modern  stage  perform- 
ances. But  the  fact  remains  that  the  more  adequate 
and  truthful  scenic  surroundings  are,  the  less  do  they 
assert  themselves  (unless  they  become  the  chief 
spectacular  objects,  of  absorbing  interest  in  themselves 
and  thus  wholly  detract  from  the  truly  dramatic  im- 
pression), and  thus  convey  to  the  spectator  the  attitude 
of  mind  and  the  aesthetic  satisfaction  belonging  essen- 
tially to  the  plastic  and  graphic  arts.  On  the  other 
hand,  imperfect  scenic  surroundings,  especially  sole- 
cisms from  the  historical  and  social  point  of  view  (the 
wrong  costumes,  appurtenances,  and  scenery  belong- 
ing to  other  ages,  faulty  topography  or  errors  in  the 
social  and  individual  appearance  of  the  actors  and 
their  social  environment)  painfully  attract  the  atten- 
tion, weaken  illusion  and  fail  to  convey  fully  the 
action  itself. 

The  higher  form  of  the  drama  as  an  art  adopts 
verse  diction  and  calls  in  this  central  element  of 
formal  literary  art  to  strengthen,  through  lyrical 
form,  the  exalted  aesthetic  mood  in  the  audience. 
The  subject-matter  in  these  is  generally  of  the  heroic 
order  ;  and  in  its  exalted  spheres  rises  above  the 
actual  daily  life  of  the  spectator,  the  obtrusive 
interests  of  which  it  strives  to  dispel  by  raising  him 
into  the  more  harmonious  spheres  of  art  and  evoking 
in  him  the  aesthetic  mood.  The  characters  and  events 
themselves  and  their  atmosphere  require  such  eleva- 
tion of  mood  and  receptivity  on  the  part  of  the 
audience.  The  Greeks  thus  introduced  the  cothurnus 
into  their  tragic  representations,  which  raised  the 
dimensions  of  the  actor's  figure  and  required  corre- 
sponding modifications,  through  masks,  etc.,  to  pro- 
duce the  impressive  effect  of  the  personalities  and 


230  ESTHETICS,   ART 

their  surroundings.  Verse,  and  especially  blank 
verse,  performs  a  similar  function.  We  have  already 
noted  the  lyrical  quality  in  the  Greek  choruses, 
strengthened  by  expressive  and  harmonious  move- 
ments in  the  dances,  which  directly  impressed  the 
general  mood,  character  and  deeper  significance  of 
the  action  as  conveyed  by  the  actors  themselves. 
These  choruses,  as  we  have  seen,  are  eminent  speci- 
mens of  lyric  poetry ;  but  also  in  many  of  the 
single  speeches  of  heralds  and  messengers,  as  well  as 
of  the  principal  actors,  the  artistic  quality  of  the 
verse  gave  elevation  to  the  action  as  a  whole.  The 
same  applies  to  many  speeches  and  soliloquies  of 
Shakespeare's  characters,  of  distinct  poetic  and  lyrical 
beauty  in  themselves.  The  French  audience  is 
thrilled  by  the  beaux  vers  in  the  tragedies  of  Racine 
and  Corneille,  as  is  also  the  case  with  some  of  the 
verses  by  Richepin,  Coppe*e  and  Maeterlinck.  Even 
the  melodious  and  impressive  passages  in  Swinburne's 
dramas,  though  they  are  not  seen  on  the  stage,  have 
this  quality. 

In  Greek  comedy  the  cothurnus  is  discarded,  nor 
have  we  the  same  solemn  and  formal  diction.  But 
even  in  these  the  poetic  and  lyric  element  is  often 
presented  in  speeches  and  passages  of  which  the 
Parabasis  in  The  Birds  of  Aristophanes  is  a  notable 
instance.  Lessing  showed  long  ago  how  it  was  chiefly 
through  the  English  novels  of  Richardson  and  his 
followers  that  the  scope  of  the  drama  was  widened 
out  to  embrace  all  aspects  of  life,  as  also,  by  discarding 
the  more  formal  mode  of  artistic  expression  in  verse, 
it  gained  in  directness  and  intensity  in  presenting 
the  reality  of  actual  contemporary  life.  The  drama 
thus  aims  at  presenting  the  illusion  of  life  in  pure 
naturalism,  which  must,  however,  not  be  confounded 
(as  we  have  seen,  above)  with  the  reality  of  actual  life, 
with  the  perception  and  apprehension  of  life  as  we 


ARISTOTLE'S   KATHARSIS  231 

see  it  day  by  day,  or  in  descriptions  in  newspaper 
reports.  The  facts  and  incidents  of  life  must  be 
composed  and  harmonised,  so  as  to  convey  fully  and 
convincingly  the  human  character,  acting  and  acted 
upon,  its  fate,  as  well  as  particular  incidents  con- 
veying the  social,  political,  and  economic  condition 
affecting  fate,  and,  sometimes,  thus  forcibly  intro- 
ducing the  leading  incidents  of  the  drama. 

The  famous  —  if,  unfortunately,  fragmentary  — 
passage  in  Aristotle's  Poetics,  that  "  the  drama  is  to 
produce  katharsis  (purification)  through  fear  and  pity" 
(whatever  may  be  the  exact  meaning  of  these  terms 
from  the  philological  or  critical  point  of  view),  helps  us 
in  its  vaguer  suggestiveness  to  grasp  for  ourselves  the 
important  distinctive  feature  of  the  drama.  To  follow 
the  spirit  of  Aristotle's  reasoning  in  its  wider  sphere, 
art  and  ethics  differ  from  science  in  that  they  are  not 
so  much  concerned  with  things  as  they  are,  or  happen 
to  present  themselves  to  the  apprehending  mind, 
but  with  things  as  they  ought  to  be  in  the  most  perfect 
harmonious  relation  to  the  apprehending  mind  of 
intelligent  and  moral  beings.  In  dramatic  art  there 
is  thus  called  into  play  the  creative  activity  of  man 
to  "  compose  "  the  events  of  life  in  the  harmonious 
inter-relation  of  the  factors  which  produce  events 
and  decide  the  fate  of  those  concerned.  In  such 
an  artistic  representation  of  life,  therefore,  we  do  not 
receive  the  direct  "  affects  "—personal  impressions, 
feelings,  and  passions — which  are  aroused  when  we  are 
concerned  in,  or  directly  perceive  in  life,  certain 
incidents  affecting  the  fate  of  those  concerned  ;  we 
do  not  experience  actual  fear  or  the  suffering  of  pity, 
but  these  emotions  are  "  purified  "  by  art.  This 
purification  (though  we  dare  not  consider  this  only 
interpretation  of  the  words  of  Aristotle)  concerns,  in 
the  first  instance,  the  presentation  of  the  events  in 
which  all  that  is  accidental  and  irrelevant  to  the 


232  ESTHETICS,    ART 

true  meaning  and  import  of  what  is  enacted  is  elimin- 
ated ;  the  causes  which  produce  the  effects,  the 
characters  themselves,  the  surrounding  conditions, 
and  the  incidents  which  follow  are  concentrated  and 
harmonised  to  be  fully  expressive  of  the  central  ideas. 
But,  in  the  second  place,  as  regards  the  spectator  or 
audience,  they  are  thus  not  directly  affected  and 
suffering  or  passionately  interested ;  their  pity  or 
compassion  is  turned  to  sympathy  ;  because,  in  some 
degree  of  consciousness,  the  illusion  takes  the  place 
of  actuality  and,  in  the  degree  in  which  it  constrain- 
ingly  interests  us  in  the  events  and  in  the  fate  of  the 
characters,  do  we  feel  the  sympathy  which  produces 
the  aesthetic  pleasure.  Thus,  under  the  dominance 
of  our  more  or  less  conscious  realisation  that  what  we 
see  and  feel  is  an  illusion  and  not  actuality,  the 
emotions  which  at  the  time  we  feel,  however 
strong  they  may  be,  have  carried  us  for  the  nonce 
far  from  the  actual  interests  and  desires  of  our  daily 
life  into  another  sphere  where,  through  sympathy, 
our  leading  hopes  and  aspirations  of  life  are  brought 
home  to  us  and  thus  produce  a  moral  elevation  which 
purifies  the  heart  and  mind.  Now,  this  dramatic 
illusion  may,  as  a  whole,  lead  to  two  final  results 
corresponding  to  the  two  broad  classifications  of  the 
drama  :  comedy  and  tragedy.  The  conception  which 
led  the  dramatist  to  compose  the  incidents  of  life 
and  character  by  their  inner  affinity  to  produce  certain 
definite  consequences,  may  confirm  the  ideal  order  of 
events  in  the  direction  of  justice  and  charity.  The 
effect  upon  the  audience  will  therefore  be  a  corre- 
spondingly cheerful  and  happy  mood,  leading  even  to 
laughter.  This,  in  its  broadest  form,  is  the  effect 
of  comedy.  On  the  other  hand,  the  final  and  fatal 
result  may,  owing  to  the  individuality  of  the  character 
presented  and  the  surrounding  conditions  and  suc- 
cession of  events,  clash  with  ultimate  justice  and 


THE   PROSE   DRAMA  233 

charity  and  then  lead  to  disaster,  evoking  pity  and 
sadness.  This  is  the  result  of  tragedy.  But  not 
only  is  this  sadness  deprived  of  its  sting  of  acuteness 
through  the  consciousness  of  "  illusion,"  but  the  tragic 
individual  miscarriage  of  justice  and  charity  confirms 
all  the  more  in  the  consciousness  of  the  spectator  the 
supreme  power  of  the  Tightness  of  ideal  standards  of 
social  justice  and  order  and  the  longing  for  the 
realisation  of  these.1 

In  many  of  the  great  tragedies  this  ultimate  leading 
idea  or  ideal  is  actually  conveyed  in  the  drama  itself, 
and  in  some  instances  forms  the  climax  to  the  whole 
dramatic  sequence.  This  is  notably  the  case  in  the 
-^Eschylean  trilogy  of  the  Oresteia,  where  the  tragic 
results  of  the  Agamemnon  and  Ccephori  culminate 
in  the  conversion  into  benevolent  Eumenides  of  the 
furious  spirits  of  revenge  hunting  down  the  unfor- 
tunate victim  of  inherited  crime,  and  these  converted 
Furies  ultimately  live  under,  and  bow  down  to,  the 
establishment  of  justice  in  the  Court  of  the  Areopagus 
at  Athens,  founded  by  Athene,  the  Goddess  of  Pure 
Wisdom  and  Justice,  who  yields  to  the  charitable 
pleading  of  Apollo. 

THE  PROSE  DRAMA 

In  the  prose  drama  we  approach  nearer  to  actual 
life  and  all  its  varieties,  with  more  detail  drawing  and 
individualisation  of  characters  in  their  inter-relation 
to,  and  interaction  with,  the  surrounding  society. 
But  we  must  never  forget  that  in  the  great  verse- 
dramas  the  forcible  presentation  of  character  in  its 
relation  to,  and  conflict  with,  society  was  already 
presented  in  classic  types.  Hamlet,  Othello,  Macbeth, 
Lear,  stand  out  as  monumental  types  of  clearly 
individualised  characters,  acting  upon,  and  struggling 

1  See  Part  I,  p.  81. 


234  AESTHETICS,   ART 

with,  the  social  conditions  that  surround  them. 
Even  on  a  broader  plane  of  collective  human  activity 
in  history,  we  see  the  individual  characters  in  the  life 
of  nations,  the  world  in  which  the  events  take  place, 
and  the  changes  in  the  social  and  political  world 
which  through  their  own  individuality  and  position 
in  life  they  directly  affect.  Such  is  the  case  in  the 
succession  of  Shakespeare's  king-dramas.  A  re- 
markable instance  of  historical  drama,  in  which  both 
the  central  character  and  his  historical  surroundings 
are  effectively  presented  in  the  action  on  the  stage, 
is  Schiller's  Wallenstein's  Lager  und  Wallenstein's  Tod. 
There  are  others  in  many  of  the  great  classical  French 
dramatists.  On  the  side  of  comedy  the  immortal 
Moliere — perhaps  the  greatest  literary  genius  of 
France — has  given  the  world  the  most  strongly  marked 
plastic  types  of  human  character  and  human  frailties 
within  the  setting  of  the  social  environment  of  his 
day.  The  same  applies  to  the  works  of  the  eighteenth 
century  dramatists  of  England,  among  which  Sheri- 
dan's School  for  Scandal  stands  out  as  a  most  perfect 
instance. 

More  and  more  in  modern  contemporary  drama  are 
the  characters  themselves  individualised  in  variety 
and  delicate  shadings  ;  while  the  social  groupings  are 
also  differentiated  in  more  individual  and  distinct 
gradations.  Within  each  national  group  the  dis- 
tinctively national  and  local  element  is  forcibly 
conveyed,  until  the  audience  also  has  presented  to  it, 
not  only  by  means  of  dialect,  but  by  all  the  distinc- 
tive characteristics  of  provincial  traditions  and  social 
customs,  with  convincing  local  surroundings  and 
costumes,  dramas  such  as  the  Belgian,  Sicilian, 
Irish,  Lancashire  dramatists  and  actors  have  produced, 
so  that  the  provincial  differentiae  stand  out  pro- 
minently as  the  central  characteristic  of  the  perform- 
ance as  a  whole.  Within  each  nation  and  each 


ITS   MODERN   DEVELOPMENTS  235 

provincial  centre,  again,  there  have  been  long  since 
established,  as  important  dramatic  factors,  class 
distinctions  with  their  marked  differences  in  appear- 
ances, manners,  language,  tastes,  and  customs  of 
living  and  acting.  Out  of  the  clash  and  conflict 
of  such  social  class  difference  grows  again  the  distant 
action  of  the  drama,  leading  either  to  tragic  or  to 
comic  results.  The  modern  French  and  English  drama, 
as  well  as  that  of  every  other  country,  abounds  in 
typical  dramatic  instances  of  this  kind.  From  the 
great  dramatic  writers  of  the  last  generation,  among 
whom  Dumas  the  younger  ranks  foremost,  the  French 
as  well  as  the  English  stage  abounds  in  instances. 
In  this  sequence  the  most  refined  and  subtle  differ- 
ences in  characterisation  are  furnished  by  one  of  the 
last  of  the  series,  Pailleron's  Le  Monde  oil  I' on  s'ennuie. 
The  most  characteristic  development  of  this  pro- 
cess of  dramatic  and  social  differentiation  is  produced 
by  the  introduction  of  the  problem-play,  in  which 
the  social  questions  of  our  day  form  the  centre  of 
interest  and  of  dramatic  composition.  Within  these 
problems  that  of  sex  is  most  prominent.  Ibsen 
may  here  be  considered  as  the  leader,  followed  by  a 
large  number  of  eminent  dramatic  writers  in  France, 
England,  Germany,  Italy,  Sweden  and  Spain.  The 
definite  problems  of  modern  political,  and  even 
economic,  life  have  established  themselves  and  are 
coming  forward  with  greater  prominence.  An  earlier 
attempt  of  this  kind  was  the  Die  Weber  of  Hauptmann, 
in  which  the  conflict  between  the  employer  and  the 
employed,  leading  to  a  strike,  forms  the  centre  of 
dramatic  interest,  and  is  powerfully  presented  on  the 
stage  ;  while  both  in  France  and  in  England  the 
same  subject  has  been  skilfully  dealt  with  by  Bataille 
and  Galsworthy.  Still  more  defined  and  diversified 
problems  of  modern  life  are  chosen  and  presented, 
notably  by  such  French  dramatists  as  Bernstein, 


236  ESTHETICS,   ART 

Bataille,   and  most  professedly  by   Brieux,   and   in 
England  by  Granville  Barker  and  Galsworthy. 

Naturally  the  form  of  the  drama,  its  means  of 
scenic  presentation,  as  well  as  the  methods  of  acting, 
have  been  essentially  modified  by  these  modern  de- 
velopments of,  and  approximations  to,  actual  life. 
On  the  other  hand,  the  material  form  of  presentation 
may,  and  does,  react  upon  the  character  of  com- 
position, as  well  as  in  exposition  and  even  in  the 
choice  of  subjects  for  composition.  This  process  is 
most  clearly  demonstrated  by  the  development  of 
modern  cinematograph  performances.  Whether  this 
form  of  dramatic  presentation  is  good  or  bad,  leads 
to  the  extension  or  degeneration  of  dramatic  art  or 
not  ;  whether  it  is  destructive  of  taste  and  leads  to 
the  atrophy  of  thought,  of  higher  reasoning  and  of 
deeper  feeling  ;  or  whether  it  quickens  intelligence 
and  perception,  developing  visual  faculty,  and  thus, 
by  mere  suggestion  stimulating  the  reasoning  powers 
to  supplement  the  full  presentation  of  the  actions 
presented  only  in  their  visual  aspect  ;  whether, 
finally,  this  visual  means  of  bringing  home  to  the 
widest  public  the  most  varied  historical  events  and 
movements  and  incidents  of  life,  which  would  never 
have  been  presented  to  them  through  any  other 
vehicle,  thus  acts  as  a  powerful  educational  influence  ; 
or  whether,  by  the  introduction  of  sensational  and 
even  coarse  and  immoral  incidents  favoured  by 
the  limited  visual  scenic  presentation,  it  is  debasing 
— all  these  are  questions  which  do  not  concern  us 
here  and  which  I  need  not  endeavour  to  answer. 
The  fact  remains  that  it  is  an  interesting  aspect  of 
modern  dramatic  presentation  ;  though  after  all 
it  is  not  so  new,  because,  depending  upon  a  one-sided 
and  imperfect  form  of  presentation  without  the 
spoken  word  (except  in  the  short  written  prologue 
to  each  scene),  it  has  already  existed.  It  really  corre- 


PROSE   LITERATURE  237 

spends  to  the  pantomime  and  ballet  of  old.  It  is  not 
inconceivable  that,  in  the  future,  by  some  ingenious 
invention,  the  moving  pictures  may,  by  most  accurate 
mechanical  synchronism,  be  combined  with  the  gramo- 
phone, so  that  the  acting  figures  presented  to  the 
eye  would  at  the  same  time  pronounce  the  actual 
words  which  in  the  real  scene  they  would  utter.  It 
may  be  said  that  this,  though  a  very  complicated 
mechanical  invention,  would  be  but  a  clumsy  make- 
shift for  the  actual  modern  drama.  But  the  answer 
to  this  would  be  that  the  cinematograph  "  play  " 
can  visibly  produce  all  the  striking  scenes  and  sur- 
roundings in  actual  nature  and  life,  while  the  drama, 
limited  to  stage  and  its  mechanism,  cannot  do  this. 

PROSE  LITERATURE 

We  have  just  seen  how  in  the  drama  the  characters 
and  their  fates,  the  central  figures  and  their  environ- 
ment, are  rendered  in  concentrated  action  limited  in 
time  to  one  scenic  performance,  the  antecedent  and 
succeeding  events  being  implied  or  suggested  in  the 
characters  themselves  and  the  effect  of  the  environ- 
ment upon  them.  In  prose  literature — roughly 
speaking,  fiction — this  power  of  literary  presentation 
of  life  is  developed  still  further,  in  definiteness,  as 
well  as  in  variety  and  complexity.  The  means  of 
presentation  are  thus  not  limited  in  time  and  place 
to  one  specialised  sequence  of  events  as  representative 
of  the  wholeness  of  life  ;  but,  both  in  regard  to 
characters  and  their  development,  and  also  to  the 
surroundings  and  the  incidents  modifying  them  in 
their  sequence  and  changes — in  all  these  the  work  of 
fiction  is  not  tied  down  by  the  limitations  of  time  and 
space  imposed  upon  the  drama.  We  can  follow  the 
development  of  the  characters  and  their  social 
surroundings,  from  their  origin  (even  their  ancestry), 


238  AESTHETICS,   ART 

through  their  growth  to  decay,  within  all  the  stages 
of  the  physical  and  social  environment  in  which  they 
grow  up  or  have  been  evolved,  through  all  the  changes 
in  the  physical  and  social  conditions  in  which  human 
beings  were  born,  lived  and  acted.  Moreover,  the 
impressions,  emotions  and  thoughts  produced  are 
not  so  concentrated  and  instantaneous,  depending 
upon  one  performance  ;  but  the  reader  can  ponder 
and  reflect  on  each  part  of  the  presentation,  refer  back 
to  earlier  passages  and  consider  their  bearing  upon 
the  later  ones,  and  thus  gain  a  fuller  apprehension 
and  a  more  exact  and  complete  understanding  of 
every  part,  as  well  as  the  whole,  of  the  complex  artistic 
unit  which  the  author  wishes  to  convey  with  vivid 
fullness. 

We  have  seen  how  even  social  problems  can  be 
vitalised  into  convincing  illustration  in  the  dramatic 
action  of  a  play  ;  but  to  a  still  higher  and  more 
extended  degree  can  this  be  dealt  with  in  the  work  of 
the  writer  of  fiction.  So  varied  and  clear  is  the 
"  meaning  "  in  these  works  of  art  that  the  "  form  " 
seems  lost  in  it,  both  as  regards  the  work  of  the  author 
and  the  effect  upon  the  reader,  and  it  may  thus 
approach,  and  even  be  identified  with,  writing  and 
exposition  in  the  sphere  of  epistemology  and  science. 
Still,  the  H  form  "  remains  the  essential  element  in  the 
work  of  fiction  to  which  the  meanings  are  subordinated 
as  elementary  parts,  welded  together  by  its  own 
spirit  and  harmonious  unity  into  a  new  creation,  both 
in  the  mind  of  the  author  as  well  as  of  his  readers. 
As  we  have  insistently  noted  before  in  other  depart- 
ments of  art,  life  is  not  presented  "  photographically," 
the  scenes  and  events  are  not  produced  autographic- 
ally,  in  a  detailed  report  in  which  the  completeness 
and  exact  sequence  of  details  and  incidents  is  the  one 
object  aimed  at,  a  counterfeit  presentment  of  the 
actual  facts  of  life  ;  but  all  the  elements,  seen  and 


STORY   OF   ADVENTURE  239 

unseen,  momentary,  precedent  and  subsequent,  are 
harmonised  into  an  organic  unity,  into  a  complete 
picture  or  presentation,  or  illustration  of  larger  or 
deeper  ideas. 

We  thus  have  before  us  that  important  department 
of  literary  art,  growing  in  importance  if  not  actually 
predominant  in  modern  times,  which  has  produced 
the  novel  or  romance,  including  the  short  story.1 
We  can  trace  its  origin  far  back  into  the  centuries, 
but  it  still  remains,  in  its  complete  development,  a 
product  of  modern  times.  From  the  story  of  adven- 
ture it  soon  develops  into  the  story  of  a  whole  life, 
the  life  of  the  hero,  to  the  romance  or  novel ;  the 
presentation  of  a  whole  life  into  which,  by  the  artistic 
skill  of  the  author,  the  reader  is  forced  into  sympathy 
or  at  least  sympathetic  understanding ;  and  through 
all  the  growth  and  vicissitudes,  successes  and  failures, 
the  interested  and  fascinated  reader  passes,  experi- 
encing aesthetically  through  his  receptive  soul  all  those 
elements  of  purified  sympathy  which  we  have  noted 
is  the  effect  produced  by  a  dramatic  art.  Yet  all  is 
not  concentrated  into  one  vivid  experience  during  a 
single  performance  ;  but,  passing  through  the  duration 
of  extensive  reading  into  all  the  detailed  experiences 
and  the  fate  of  the  characters  presented,  it  approaches 
nearer  to  actual  life. 

Among  the  great  works  of  the  past  standing  out  as 
a  supreme  type  of  fullness  in  the  presentation  of  the 
character  in  its  relation  to  the  social  surroundings 
of  his  age,  stands  the  creation  of  the  great  knight  of 
La  Mancha,  Don  Quixote.  With  powerful  strokes  of 
the  pen  the  author  enables  us  to  follow  this  noble- 
hearted  gentleman  through  all  the  incidents  of  his  life, 
carried  onwards  and  upwards  by  the  spirit  of  chivalry 
of  which,  in  spite  of  comedy  and  humour,  he  is  the  last 
tragic  figure.  He  battles  with  the  social  conditions 

1  Cf.  Art  in  the  Nineteenth  Century,  chap,  iii,  "  Literary  Arts." 


240  ESTHETICS,   ART 

surrounding  him,  as  he  marks  the  last  stages  in  the 
struggle  of  that  age  of  chivalry,  succumbing  in  the 
great  social  struggle  of  bloody  conflict,  until  it  meets 
with  its  death  in  the  dissolvent  and  annihilating  virus 
of  ridicule.  In  less  heroic  and  romantic  form  among 
the  many  classics  of  the  eighteenth  century,  we  follow 
lives  and  characters  struggling  with  the  spirit  of  the 
age  in  Tom  Jones,  in  The  Vicar  of  Wake  field,  in  Goethe's 
Werther,  until  more  and  more,  in  the  finer  drawing 
of  details,  as  well  as  in  the  character  of  the  hero  and 
all  the  nicer  shadings  of  his  social  environment,  we 
pass  into  the  nineteenth  century,  when  the  genius  of 
Balzac  fascinates  us  into  sympathy  with  the  life  and 
development  and  fate  of  his  vivid  personalities  and 
the  delicate  shadings  of  the  social  surroundings, 
powerful  and  strong  in  their  standards  and  dominance 
— if  not  tyranny.  More  and  more  the  complete  and 
vivid  presentation  of  the  character  itself,  even  its 
psychology,  becomes  the  definite  aim,  together  with 
the  collective  psychology  of  society,  through  Dickens 
and  Thackeray,  culminating  in  the  production  of 
such  a  classic  type  as  Becky  Sharp.  The  "  psycho- 
logical" novel  is  still  further  developed  by  George 
Eliot  and  her  followers,  and  the  immediate  effect  of 
the  surroundings  in  producing  and  modifying  the 
character  is  vividly  displayed  in  the  sequence  of  in- 
cident and  story.  It  can  be  shown  how  the  central 
unit,  the  central  idea,  in  most  of  her  stories  lies  in  the 
process  by  which  the  social  surroundings  and  the 
experiences  and  their  effects  upon  the  central  figure 
modify  the  character  and  produce  either  a  tragic  or 
conciliatory  final  development.  As  illustrating  this 
contrasted  result  we  need  but  live  through  the  lives  of 
Maggie  Tulliver  and  Gwendoline  Harless  in  The  Mill 
on  the  Floss  and  in  Daniel  Deronda.  One  of  the  most 
striking  instances  illustrating  the  development  of  a 
soul  through  the  experiences  forced  upon  it  by  its 


NATIONAL  AND  PROVINCIAL  CHARACTER  241 

environment  and  the  incidents  of  life  is  Mr.  Conrad's 
Lord  Jim.  I  may  also  single  out  a  remarkable 
presentation  of  the  life  of  a  girl  within  strongly 
marked  religious  surroundings  by  Mr.  Hugh  Walpole 
in  The  Captives. 

Besides  the  portrayal  of  social  environments  in 
classes,  the  differences  and  conflicts  among  them  and 
their  relation  to  the  central  character,  many  works 
may  also  be  classified  as  regards  the  portrayal  of 
national  and  provincial  characteristics  in  which  the 
collective  and  distinctive  national  character  forms 
one  of  the  chief,  if  not  the  chief,  idea  toward  which, 
and  into  which,  all  the  details  of  the  life  described 
tend  and  in  which  they  are  harmonised. 

Thus  in  the  Russian  novel  from  Gogol  to  Turge*nief, 
Tolstoy,  Dostoievsky,  Gorky,  and  Tchekov,  the  dis- 
tinctly Russian  characteristics  in  single  figures  and 
in  the  social  life  provide  a  centre  of  artistic  unity. 
The  same  applies  to  such  German  writers  of  fiction 
as  Fritz  Reuter  for  the  North,  Anzengraber  for  the 
South,  as  well  as  in  the  powerful  fiction  of  Fransen  in 
such  novels  as  Yoern  Uhl  and  Hilligenlei ;  while 
Gotfried  Keller  carries  us  to  Switzerland,  Jokai  to 
Hungary,  and  Emil  Franzos  to  the  tragic  homes  of 
the  Jews  in  the  south-east  of  Europe.  The  number- 
less French  novels  showing  these  characteristics  are 
best  typified  by  Balzac's  distinctive  delineation  of 
Parisian  and  provincial  life  and,  in  the  masterly 
series  of  more  recent  French  life,  in  Anatole  France's 
stories  grouping  round  the  central  figure  of  M.  Ber- 
geret.  The  English-speaking  nations  are  equally  rich 
in  novels  of  this  character.  We  need  but  single  out 
Sir  James  Barrie's  Scottish  stories,  supplemented  by 
so  many  other  distinctive  writers  of  the  North,  Mr. 
Arnold  Bennett's  searching  and  intimate  portrayal  of 
the  life  in  the  Midland  pottery  districts,  the  charac- 
teristic Irish  humorous  and  pathetic  tales  of  Martin 
17 


242  ESTHETICS,   ART 

Ross  and  Miss  Somerville  and  George  A.  Birmingham, 
until  we  are  carried  to  the  confines  of  the  British 
Empire  in  Mr.  Kipling's  vivid  descriptions  of  British 
life  in  India.  In  America,  New  England  life,  made 
familiar  to  our  fathers  by  the  genius  of  Hawthorne, 
has  since  been  presented  to  us  through  the  pen  of 
W.  D.  Howells  and  Miss  Wilkins,  while  the  life  of  the 
South  is  brought  near  to  us  in  Mr.  Cable's  Southern 
and  Creole  stories  and  the  writings  of  Joel  Chandler 
Harris  ;  and  the  middle  and  far  West  through  the 
humour  of  Mark  Twain  and  Bret  Harte  and,  with 
added  social  problems,  by  Mr.  Norris's  vigorous 
writings  and  that  remarkable  story  Main  Street  by 
Mr.  Sinclair  Lewis.  Scandinavia,  in  spite  of  a  general 
similarity  of  character,  has  brought  home  to  us  the 
distinctiveness  of  Danish  life  in  such  a  novel  as  Niels 
Liene,  by  Jacobsen,  as  Sweden  in  the  powerful  story 
of  Goesta  Berling,  by  Selma  Lagerloef,  and  Norway 
in  that  strong  novel  embodying  the  economic  problems 
— The  Great  Hunger,  by  Johan  Bojer. 

Not  only  is  national  character  thus  reflected  in  the 
literature  of  fiction,  but  as  a  purely  modern  product 
in  the  evolution  of  intimate  social  as  well  as  com- 
mercial and  political  relations,  the  inter-relation, 
uniting  as  well  as  conflicting,  of  several  nationalities 
is  itself  made  one  of  the  central  points  of  artistic 
interest  in  the  masterly  novels  of  Henry  James  and 
Mrs.  Wharton,  as  well  as  in  some  of  the  works  of  M. 
Paul  Bourget.  The  incidents  in  such  novels,  directing 
and  modifying  the  life  described,  and  the  fate  of  the 
characters  arise  out  of  the  complex  personal  and  social 
characters  of  the  actors  in  such  international  dramas 
which  are  to  be  harmoniously  reconciled  in  life  or 
which  clash  into  irreconcilable  antagonism.  Physical 
conditions,  especially  the  influence  of  climate  in 
affecting  national  and  individual  life  and  character, 
have  formed  the  groundwork  of  many  remarkable 


INFLUENCE   OF   CLIMATE  243 

works.  This  is  especially  manifest  in  their  influence 
upon  the  morals,  manners  and  traditions  of  those  bred 
in  temperate  and  western  civilized  countries  who 
come  under  the  spell  of  tropical  life.  The  transition 
from  temperate  to  tropical  life  is  furnished  by  Mr.  N. 
Douglas,  South  Wind,  placed  in  some  such  island  as 
Capri,  while  such  masterpieces  as  Mr.  Woolff's  A 
Village  in  the  Jungle,  Mr.  Conrad's  numerous  stories 
of  remote  regions,  those  of  Sir  Hugh  Clifford,  some  of 
O.  Henry's,  and  finally  more  recent  works  by  Mr. 
Somerset  Maughan,  strikingly  illustrate  this  charac- 
teristic modern  development  of  fiction. 

Finally,  we  come  to  the  problem  story  and  the 
"  Novel  with  a  Purpose,"  in  which  the  central  or 
leading  idea  of  the  artistic  composition  as  a  whole 
is  a  social  problem  which  the  story  sets  itself  to  solve 
or  to  elucidate.  The  so-called  "  Novel  with  a  Pur- 
pose," the  "  essay-story,"  has  met  with  much  plati- 
tudinous generalisation  and  superficial  criticism. 
There  is  no  doubt  that,  when  such  general  ideas  are 
pedantically  obtruded  in  doctrinaire  instances,  they 
counteract  the  artistic  illusion  of  life  which  fiction 
must  produce.  But  it  is  hardly  an  over-generalisation 
to  say  that  every  great  novel  is  in  some  sense  a  novel 
with  a  purpose,  or,  rather,  that  it  contains  some  leading 
idea,  at  once  effective  in  producing  the  story  in  the 
mind  of  the  author  as  it  also  impresses  upon  the  readers 
a  harmonising  unity  of  idea  within  the  parts  of  the 
work  as  a  whole.  Still,  some  writers  have  more  clearly 
and  definitely  emphasised  a  general  idea  or  purpose 
from  the  beginning  to  the  end  of  their  books.  Thus  no 
doubt  many,  if  not  most,  of  Dickens 's  stories  were 
written  with  a  definite  social  or  moral  purpose  and 
centre  round  the  abuse  of  some  institution  or  custom 
which  he  desires  to  rectify.  So,  too,  Zola  definitely 
manifests  and  embodies  such  social  ideas  or  purposes 
in  some  of  his  serial  stories,  when  he  wished  to  convey 


244  ESTHETICS,   ART 

the  gradual  physical  and  moral  degeneration  of  the 
life  of  the  Second  Empire  ;  while  single  stories  deal 
with  definite  aspects  and  problems.  Matilda  Serao 
in  //  Paese  di  Cuccagna  purposes,  by  means  of  the 
actual  life  and  living  interest  among  the  people  acting 
in  the  story,  to  illustrate  the  evils  of  the  public 
lottery  system  in  Neapolitan  life.  In  L'Assommoir 
Zola  has  deliberately  aimed  at  bringing  home  to  the 
reader  the  effect  of  drink  upon  the  community,  and 
does  this  vividly  in  leading  the  reader  to  follow  in 
sympathy  the  lives  of  the  individuals  in  a  family. 
He  has  even,  in  that  shorter  masterpiece  Au  Bonheur 
des  Dames,  taken  as  his  subject  the  economical  evolu- 
tion of  the  modern  "  Department  Store  "  in  its  con- 
flict with,  and  final  victory  over,  the  small  special  shop. 
He  thus  brings  home  to  the  reader  a  most  specific 
movement  in  modern  economic  and  industrial  evolu- 
tion by  his  constraining  power  of  forcing  the  reader 
into  sympathy  with  the  living  impersonations  of 
these  two  conflicting  economic  elements.  The  country 
shop-girl  who  goes  to  Paris  to  live  with  her  uncle, 
a  small  umbrella-maker,  upon  entering  Paris  in  the 
morning  stands  enraptured  before  the  bewildering 
show-windows  of  one  of  the  great  department  stores 
at  the  early  hour  when  the  shutters  are  being  re- 
moved. Her  uncle's  trade  is  being  ruined  and  he 
himself  reduced  to  indigence,  by  the  competition  of 
this  great  store,  whose  manager  is  thus  his  impersonal, 
his  unseen  and  relentless,  enemy.  The  conflict 
between  the  two  economic  and  domestic  camps  thus 
rages  on  without  pity.  The  human  and  dramatic 
interest  of  the  story  carries  the  girl  into  the  camp  of 
the  enemy ;  she  enters  the  service  of  the  great  store, 
and  falls  in  love  with  its  manager.  The  idea  is  made 
living,  made  life,  and  the  arguments  are  transfused 
with  life  and  with  the  heart-blood  of  living  beings. 
Now,  whether  the  problem  itself  be  solved  or  not, 


THE   NOVEL   WITH   A   PURPOSE  245 

whether  economic  arguments  obtrude  or  not,  from  the 
point  of  view  of  political  economy  and  purely  scientific 
exposition,  the  central  idea  has  led  the  novelist  to 
write  a  great  story,  and  the  idea,  moreover,  has  been 
converted  into  a  harmonious  emotional  and  aesthetic 
whole  which  thus  forcibly  moves  the  reader  into  the 
aesthetic  emotions  and  moods — which  is  the  function 
of  a  work  of  art.  I  cannot  refrain  from  dwelling  in 
this  connection  upon  a  Spanish  story  by  Blasco  Ibanez 
which  I  have  recently  read  in  the  French  translation 
called  A  I'ombre  de  la  Cathedrale.  The  story  is 
centralised  round  the  great  contemporary  problem 
of  the  struggle  between  labour  and  capital,  inequali- 
ties of  opportunities  and  privileges.  With  supreme 
artistic  instinct  the  author  has  chosen  the  most  typical 
and  expressive  contrasts  in  this  dualism  and  conflict 
presented  by  actual  life  in  this  civilised  world  of 
ours.  The  centre  of  action  and  the  central  citadel 
on  the  side  of  existing  privilege  is  placed  by  him  in 
Toledo  and,  moreover,  in  the  great  cathedral  of  that 
most  picturesque  and  representative  city  of  bygone 
ages  in  European  history.  The  cathedral  itself  and 
the  whole  human  personnel  of  the  cathedral  stand  for 
the  old  order  of  things  and  the  firmly  established 
privileges  of  a  class.  Among  the  menial  attendants 
of  the  cathedral,  living  in  poverty  in  one  of  the 
cloisters,  there  grows  up  a  boy  who,  through  his 
talents  and  his  studies  in  the  seminary,  is  marked 
out  for  a  prominent  position  in  the  hieratic  world. 
He  is  endowed  from  the  outset  with  remarkable 
intellectual  powers  and  with  a  passionate  imagination 
and  tender  heart,  courageous  and  still  loving  and 
charitable.  Just  before  entering  the  priesthood  he 
is  carried  away  in  enthusiasm  into  the  camp  of  the 
Carlist  revolution,  the  conflict  between  the  old 
orthodox  privileged  world  and  the  liberal  move- 
ment of  emancipation  and  democracy.  He  leads 


246  ESTHETICS,   ART 

with  his  comrades  the  life  of  a  revolutionary, 
essentially  tending  towards  anarchism  in  its  practices. 
Through  personal  conversation  with  revolutionaries 
and  through  his  reading,  after  the  failure  of  the  Carlist 
revolution,  he  breaks  loose  from  his  orthodox  faith 
and  traditions  and  becomes  a  convinced  socialist, 
though  never  a  violent  anarchist.  His  ideal  is  to  be 
the  pacific  social  reformer  ;  but  he  is  carried  on  by 
the  violent  current,  identified  with  definite  outrages, 
thrown  into  prison,  escapes,  and  wanders  through 
the  world  as  a  hunted  enemy  of  orderly  society  ;  until 
in  absolute  misery,  in  the  last  stages  of  phthisis,  he 
is  presented  to  the  reader  returning  to  his  native 
cloisters  to  find  a  refuge  with  his  brother,  a  menial 
attendant  in  the  cathedral,  carrying  on  the  hereditary 
work  of  that  old  cathedral  family.  The  brother 
receives  him  affectionately  and  devotedly  nurses  him 
in  the  vain  hope  of  restoring  him  to  life,  which  is 
manifestly  approaching  its  end.  But  the  peaceful 
end  is  not  to  come,  the  fire  of  conviction  burns  in 
him,  and  by  gradual  steps,  in  spite  of  his  essentially 
peaceful  intentions,  he  creates  a  revolt  among  a  group 
of  these  poverty-stricken,  miserable,  menial  atten- 
dants of  the  cathedral,  and  ends  his  life  in  a  sordid 
conflict,  killed  by  his  own  associates.  The  literary 
artist  could  not  have  embodied  in  more  typical  illus- 
trations of  life  the  great  conflict  of  economic  interest, 
and,  moreover,  these  typical  instances  are  drawn 
with  such  literary  power  and  so  strongly  appeal  to 
the  imagination  of  the  reader  that  they  stand  out 
in  their  living  truth  and  constrainingly  bring  home 
the  tragedy  of  this  great  conflict.  The  author  does 
not  venture  to  give  any  direct  means  of  solution,  of 
conciliation,  or  of  ultimate  peace  in  this  struggle, 
but  the  problem  has  inspired  him  with  a  truly  great 
story,  a  work  of  art. 

The  "  problem  "  is  thus  an  essential,  if  not  the 


SOCIAL   PROBLEM    STORY  247 

essential,  point  of  artistic  unity  and  forms  a  legiti- 
mate centre  for  such  an  artistic  organism.  It  does 
in  a  way  deal  with  the  elucidation  of  a  great  problem 
in  actual  life,  just  as  this  same  subject  is  usually  taken 
up  by  writers  on  economics,  politics,  sociology  and 
ethics,  in  the  department  of  science.  The  difference 
in  method  between  such  a  work  of  art  and  works 
of  science  lies  in  the  fact  that  the  artist  directly 
stimulates  the  imagination,  and  through  the  imagina- 
tion the  emotions,  to  realise  the  generalised  problems 
of  modern  life.  ^Esthetically,  through  the  imagina- 
tion and  the  emotions,  thought  is  stimulated.  The 
economist  or  social  student  who  writes  a  book,  a 
treatise,  or  an  essay  on  such  problems  aims  at  dis- 
pelling from  the  reader's  mind  all  imagination  and 
emotion  ;  but  step  by  step,  by  enumeration  of 
facts  and  data,  by  sober  observation  of  these  facts 
and  the  processes  of  reasoning  and  pure  intelligence, 
he  leads  up  to  more  general  truths  ;  until  at  last  he 
produces  his  final  conviction — which  we  have  seen 
is  also  an  emotion  resting  on  harmonistic  principles. 
But  the  process  in  the  case  of  the  literary  artist  or 
writer  of  fiction  is  the  very  reverse,  from  that  of  the 
economic  and  social  student,  the  man  of  science. 
Still,  the  "  problem  "  remains  as  a  legitimate  and 
important  element  in  the  provinces  of  this  department 
of  literary  art.  Thus  the  essay-story,  whether  trans- 
mitted in  imaginary  human  life  by  means  of  letters 
or  opinions,  or  of  conversation  1 — the  conversation- 
story — is  a  legitimate  form  of  literary  art. 

THE  SHORT  STORY 

Individualised   instances   illustrative  of  situations 
and  problems  of  life  in  a  concentrated  form  have  led 

1  See  Preface  to  my  Conversation  Story,  The  Rudeness  of  the  Honble. 
Mr.  Leatherhead,  and  others  published  in  The  Surface  of  Things,  as 
well  as  in  What  may  we  Read. 


248  AESTHETICS,   ART 

to  the  development  of  the  short  story  in  modern 
literature,  which  emphasises  and  conveys  those 
individual  shadings  of  modern  social  life.  The  short 
story  is  thus  a  very  distinctive  modern  development 
and  is  (owing  perhaps  greatly  to  the  adventitious 
influence  of  the  pressure  of  time  and  its  economy  in 
our  modern  life)  likely  to  be  developed  still  further 
in  its  leading  characteristics.  No  doubt  Balzac  in 
France,  as  in  Germany,  Tschoke  and  subsequent 
writers,  have  already  produced  "  short  stories.'*  In  its 
present  form  it  may  have  been  inaugurated  by  Bret 
Harte,  and  has  been  carried  further  in  the  perfection 
of  its  characteristic  technical  means  and  form  in 
varying  spheres  of  life  by  Guy  de  Maupassant,  Henry 
James,  Mrs.  Wharton,  Mr.  Rudyard  Kipling,  and, 
finally,  by  O.  Henry.  As  its  name  indicates,  it 
differs  from  the  novel  in  being  much  shorter  ;  but 
this  shortness  is  based  upon,  and  justified  by,  the 
concentration  upon  one  definite  situation  which  itself 
suggests  some  leading  idea.  The  versatility,  almost 
universality,  of  these  typical  human  incidents,  char- 
acteristics of  life  in  all  its  aspects,  to  be  found  in  the 
work  of  O.  Henry,  makes  us  regret  that  the  outer  and 
mechanical  conditions  of  his  work  as  a  journalist, 
writing  in  ephemeral  publications  and  under  similar 
hasty  conditions  of  production,  should  have  made  his 
work  so  unequal.  I  venture  to  surmise  that  if  he 
could  have  brought  himself  to  give  more  sustained 
thought  and  continuous  technical  finish  to  his  work, 
its  quality  would  have  led  him  through  the  portals  of 
classic  fiction.  It  may  be  hoped  that  a  thoroughly 
judicious  selection,  or  anthology,  of  his  best  work  may 
be  issued  to  minimise  this  fault  of  hasty  production. 
No  doubt  new  forms  may  be  evolved.  In  a  form 
somewhat  approaching  the  lyrical — the  vers  libres— 
short,  disjointed  and  suggestive  sketches  in  strong 
drawing,  the  varied  life  of  a  community  in  the  Spoon 


MUSIC  249 

River  Anthology,  Mr.  Edgar  Lee  Masters  introduces 
a  distinctly  new  form  of  fiction,  the  total  result  of 
which  is  perhaps  the  presentation  of  a  completely 
harmonised  work  of  art. 


(d)  Music  (AS  AN  ART  OF  MEANING) 

We  have  already  seen  how  music  and  ornamentative 
art  are  the  purest  arts  as  compared  with  the  "  Arts 
of  Meaning."  Music  thus  stands  out  as  one  of  the 
central  arts — positively,  because  the  vehicle  for  aes- 
thetic expression  is  directly  concerned  only  with  the 
harmony  of  sound,  and  because  its  purpose  is  satis- 
faction of  the  aesthetic  feelings  ;  and  negatively, 
because  the  tones  which  it  uses  have  no  "  meaning," 
are  not  associated  with  any  other  form  of  expression, 
do  not  appeal  to  other  human  faculties  and  interests. 

With  the  development  of  man  as  an  intelligent 
human  being,  however,  the  tendency  more  and  more 
asserts  itself  to  define  and  individualise  impressions 
and  to  establish  various  mental  associations.  We 
have  thus  seen  that,  at  an  early  period,  differentia- 
tions are  introduced  by  means  of  the  character  of  the 
emotions  through  which  musical  expressions  are 
evoked  ;  and  that,  beyond  sad  and  joyful  music,  the 
various  shadings  of  emotion  evoke  definite  harmonies 
of  tone  and  are  associated  with  them.  We  further 
saw  that  by  associations  with  occupations  and  various 
conditions  of  life  music  was  called  in ;  different  and 
clearly  defined  classes  of  music  were  evolved,  as,  for 
instance,  dance  music,  dirges,  religious  music,  martial 
music,  etc.  Finally,  when  associated  with  lyrical 
forms  of  combinations  of  words  in  the  song  and  in  all 
similar  developments  of  such  fusion  of  language  and 
music,  even  with  the  addition  of  dramatic  action, 
mere  associations  were  converted  into  highly  differen- 
tiated forms  of  music,  were  multiplied  and  developed 


250  ESTHETICS,   ART 

in  each,  not  only  through  vaguer  associations,  but 
by  specific  definition,  and  that  meanings  were  con- 
veyed emotionally  through  aesthetic  moods.     But  it 
must  always  be  remembered  that  it  is  primarily  and 
predominantly  through  these  aesthetic  emotions,  and 
not  through  suggestions  of  definite  meanings,  that 
these  further  musical  differentiations  act.     Still,  the 
central  domain  of  music  as  a  Pure  Art  will  always 
be  instrumental  music,  in  which  man  has  invented 
and  uses  instruments  of  his  own  fashioning,  in  order 
that  they  should  produce  tones  in  different  qualities, 
the  composition  and  harmony  of  which  produce  a 
work  of  musical  art.     More  even  than  the  human 
voice  (which  is  directly  connected  with,  and  subordi- 
nated   to,    the    enunciation    of   language),    and    the 
emission  of  ordinary  unmusical  sounds  for  definite 
purposes  and  uses  of  daily  life,  as  well  for  the  interested 
reflex  expression  of  actual   emotions,   the   notes   of 
instruments  convey  in  the  fullest  and  purest  form  the 
tones  out   of  which  musical   harmony  is  composed. 
At  first  these  instruments  are  used  as  solo-instru- 
ments, such  as  the  pipe,  the  flute,  reed  instruments 
and  various  forms  of  string  instruments,  until  the 
metal  or  "  brass  "  instruments  in  their  varied  forms 
are  added,  the  drum  having  from  the  first  been  the 
most  rudimentary  instrument  to  express  rhythmical 
measures  of  sound.     But  with  the  development  of 
polyphonous  music  the  tones  issuing  from  more  than 
one  instrument,  corresponding  to  the  development 
of  the  part-song,  are  harmonised  into  a  higher  and 
more    complex    musical    form — until,    finally,    the 
various    instruments,    each    containing    its    peculiar 
quality  of  sound,  are  concerted  into  a  greater  and 
more  varied  harmony,  leading  at  last  to  the  most 
highly    developed    forms    of    orchestral    music    and 
"  orchestration."     It    is    in    comparatively    modern 
times  that  this  development  of  man's  artistic  efforts 


BERLIOZ,   WAGNER,    STRAUSS  251 

has  reached  a  point  of  great  height  and  artistic 
perfection.  With  centuries  of  noted  composers, 
especially  in  Italy,  in  France  and  even  in  England,  this 
highest  form  of  orchestral  music  (including  the  organ) 
attained  the  most  rapid  development  in  three  genera- 
tions of  composers  succeeding  one  another  down  to 
the  present  day,  namely,  in  Bach,  Beethoven  and 
Brahms,  until  in  our  own  days  most  important 
varieties  and  further  developments  have  followed, 
and  may  promise  to  lead  to  still  further  achievements 
in  the  artistic  expressiveness  of  that  master  art. 

Inventions  and  physical  conditions  under  which 
the  music  itself  is  performed  have  had,  and  have, 
their  influence  in  producing  modifications  and 
developments  in  instrumental  music.  This  is  notably 
the  case  in  wind  instruments  and  instruments  pro- 
ducing definite,  more  individualised,  total  effect  of 
orchestration.  A  new  impulse  has  been  given  to 
expression  by  the  line  of  development  passing  through 
Berlioz  to  Wagner,  to  Strauss  and  the  leading  com- 
posers of  our  day,  in  which,  both  in  France  and 
England,  led  by  the  older  generation  of  masters, 
like  Saint-Saens,  Debussy,  C£sar  Franck,  Ravel  and 
others,  as  with  Sir  Edward  Elgar,  Sir  Charles  Stan- 
ford, Sir  Hubert  Parry,  and  the  vigorous  younger 
school  of  composers  in  England,  there  is  a  promise  of 
great  vitality  and  future  development. 

In  other  respects  as  well,  by  the  invention  and 
improvement  of  instruments,  notably  the  pianoforte 
and  its  precursors  of  simpler  form  in  past  centuries, 
the  expressive  power  in  variety  and  quality  of  musical 
composition  has  been  modified  and  increased — until 
the  phonograph  may  have  its  definite  influence, 
whether  for  good  or  for  bad.  The  conditions  of 
time  and  place  for  the  performance  have  again 
tended  to  diversify  and  individualise  the  character  of 
musical  composition,  as  is  eminently  the  case  with 


252  AESTHETICS,   ART 

purely  domestic  music  centring  round  the  pianoforte 
and  organ,  for  which,  in  its  earlier  forms,  Bach  pro- 
duced works  which  were,  however  pure  in  their 
musical  harmony  of  form,  still  essentially  influenced 
by  the  character  of  that  instrument  ;  until  we  come 
to  the  specifically  expressive  pianoforte  composers 
such  as  Chopin  and  Schumann. 

The  domestic  form  of  music  leads  us  on  to  that 
distinct  and  prolific  development  of  (<  chamber  " 
music,  and  this  is  enlarged  by  being  transferred  to  the 
concert  room,  to  which  has  been  added  all  the 
varieties  of  song  or  ballad  expressive  of  the  whole 
scale  of  lyrical  emotions,  which  can  be  powerfully 
recalled  to  the  audience  by  perfect  musical  art. 

From  the  earliest  times  onwards  religious  music, 
originally  entirely  ancillary  to  religious  rites  and 
ceremonies,  is  developed  in  a  great  variety  of  forms, 
until  at  last  we  come  to  the  oratorio,  which,  in  the 
domain  of  music,  is  analogous  to  the  development  of 
the  Passion  or  Mystery- Play  of  earlier  centuries.  To 
this  must  be  added  all  forms  of  choral  music.  But 
in  all  these,  as  well  as  in  the  oratorio,  the  word  has 
been  introduced,  though  as  an  artistic  expression  the 
music  still  forms  the  predominant  element. 

We  thus  see  how  through  these  various  modifica- 
tions arising  out  of  contingent  influences,  music, 
primarily  a  pure  art  of  ornamentative  character,  tends 
by  inner  development  and  association  to  approach  to 
the  definiteness  of  the  Arts  of  Meaning.  Analogous 
to  the  development  we  recognised  in  the  arts  of  sculp- 
ture and  of  painting,  as  well  as  in  the  literary  arts, 
the  step  is  made  from  Static  Symmetry  to  Organic 
Symmetry,  from  the  absolute  harmony  of  form  which 
lasts  and  does  not  suggest  movement  and  life,  to  the 
rhythmical  symmetry  which  suggests  life  and  even 
the  changes  of  human  emotions  and  thoughts.  This 
same  process  of  development  and  differentiation  is 


TIME-BEAT   AND  RHYTHM  253 

to  be  noted  in  the  two  main  elements  of  music,  namely, 
symmetry  in  time  as  well  as  harmony  in  tones.  The 
absolute  regularity  of  time-beat,  directly  expressive 
of  static  symmetry,  becomes  too  cramped  and  narrow 
for  the  expression  of  the  varieties  of  life,  emotions 
and  thoughts  ;  and  thus,  as  in  sculpture  "  rhythm  " 
had  to  be  added  to  symmetry,  so  the  absolute  regu- 
larity of  time-beat  has  to  be  modified  to  express  the 
varied  flow  of  life  and  feelings  by  means  of  deviations 
from  that  strict  regularity,  in  syncopated  and  other 
more  rhythmical  forms  of  succession.  I  can  recall 
a  most  noteworthy  experience  when,  about  forty-six 
years  ago,  I  had  the  privilege  of  being  present  at  a 
rehearsal  in  which  Richter  conducted  the  orchestra, 
Wagner  himself  standing  beside  him.  At  a  specially 
difficult  passage  Wagner  burst  in  and  addressed  the 
orchestra  with  the  significant  phrase  :  "  Gentlemen, 
you  must  not  play  this  according  to  beat  (takt),  but 
rhythmically,  taking  the  passage  as  a  whole  "  ;  and, 
taking  the  baton,  he  illustrated  the  difference  by  at 
first  beating  according  to  actual  time,  so  many  beats 
to  the  bar  in  symmetrical  regularity,  and  then,  with 
wavy  motions  of  the  baton  and  with  variety,  if  not 
irregularity,  in  the  beat,  he  drew  as  it  were  in  the  air 
a  graphic  symbol  and  movement  of  the  motif  as  a 
whole. 

As  regards  melody  and  harmony,  again,  the  same 
incursions  into  the  static,  more  conventional,  regu- 
larity can  be  noted,  even  to  the  point  of  introducing 
chords  which  in  themselves  are  cacophonous,  but 
which  are  at  once  resolved  into  a  wider  harmony. 
Thus,  in  melody  as  well  as  in  harmony,  a  greater 
variety  is  introduced,  all  of  which  increases  the  power 
of  music  to  express  the  movement  and  flow  of  life,  of 
human  emotions,  and  even  to  express  moods  and 
thoughts.  The  result  is  that  modern  orchestral 
music  has  led  to  the  development  of  the  Symphonic 


254  ESTHETICS,   ART 

Poem  and  to  that  whole  varied  form  of  musical  com- 
position under  the  name  of  Programme  Music.  Here, 
either  by  definite  passages  in  poetry  or  prose,  or  by  a 
single  title  suggesting  a  particular  idea  or  incident 
(such  as  the  various  symphonic  poems  of  Liszt, 
1m  Wald  by  Raff,  the  "  Ocean  "-symphony  by 
Rubinstein,  and  philosophic,  if  not  cosmical,  ideas 
centring  round  some  of  Strauss 's  symphonies),  the 
mind  of  the  audience  is  aided  in  fixing  a  definite 
sphere  of  emotion,  incident,  or  thought,  by  means  of, 
as  it  were,  an  outline  argument  to  the  composition, 
and  thus  tending  to  direct  a  musical  mood  into  more 
definite  channels,  out  of  which  mood  the  imagination 
may  evoke  more  definite  images.  From  Liszt  on- 
wards through  the  great  Scandinavian  musicians, 
beginning  with  Grieg,  to  those  of  Russia  and  Bohemia, 
besides  the  great  Western  nations,  innumerable  works 
of  highest  artistic  excellence  abound  to  illustrate  this 
fertile  development.  They,  together  with  Hungarian 
and  even  Negro  national  and  racial  characteristics  of 
music,  convey  individual  moods  fully  expressive  of 
such  national  and  racial  individualities  as  we  have 
already  seen  the  literary  arts  were  also  enabled  to 
produce. 

Still,  from  the  intrinsic  nature  of  this  pure  and 
ornamentative  art  there  are  limits  to  the  expression 
of  definite  meanings,  because  it  is  not,  and  cannot,  be 
in  itself  a  suitable  vehicle  for  the  conveyance  of  exact 
information.  If  it  attempts  to  do  this  it  must  fail, 
and  such  failure  disturbs  the  harmony  essential  to 
the  production  of  a  harmonious  aesthetic  mood.  The 
composer  who,  as  we  are  told,  attempted  to  give  a 
musical  image  of  "  Washington  Crossing  the  Dela- 
ware," including  even  a  reproduction  of  the  sound  of 
cracking  ice,  certainly  must  have  failed  singularly  in 
evoking  harmonious  mood  in  his  audience  corre- 
sponding to  the  artistic  properties  of  music. 


THE   SONG   OR  BALLAD  255 

When  definiteness  of  meaning  is  imperatively 
demanded  by  the  development  of  the  composition  as 
a  whole,  recourse  must  be  had  to  the  introduction  of 
words.  The  classical  illustration  of  such  an  important 
transitional  step  in  musical  composition  (I  believe 
first  cited  by  Wagner)  is  the  Ninth  Symphony  of 
Beethoven.  In  this  wonderful  musical  composition 
the  several  distinct  movements  were  constructed  to 
lead  up  to  a  climax  of  exuberant  and  exalted  joy. 
Music  here  seemed  to  fail  to  convey  by  itself  the 
definite  meaning  which  inspired  Beethoven,  and  in 
the  last  movement  he  bursts  out  into  the  Hymn  of 
Joy,  adopting  Schiller's  poem  to  fix  the  culminating 
point  in  his  lyrical  meaning — the  words  conveying 
the  definiteness  of  thought,  while  the  music  infinitely 
strengthens  the  corresponding  emotions  and  mood 
and  constrainingly  carries  the  audience  into  the 
highest  sphere  of  aesthetic  realisation. 

We  have  on  several  occasions  referred  to  the  Song 
or  Ballad.  In  this  lyrical  work  the  musical  and 
literary  arts  are,  or  ought  to  be,  fused  into  one 
harmonious  whole.  But  there  can  be  no  doubt  that, 
in  the  song,  music  is  predominant,  if  only  for  the 
simple  physical  reason  that  the  melody  is  unmistak- 
ably expressed,  while  however  perfect  the  diction  and 
enunciation  of  the  singers  may  be,  full  justice  is  not 
always  done  to  the  words.  In  fact,  we  can  hardly 
believe  that  the  poetic  values  of  some  of  the  most 
perfect  lyrics  of  Shelley  and  Keats  can  be  increased, 
if  they  are  not  actually  diminished,  by  being  set  to 
music.  Still,  the  harmonious  fusion  of  poetry  and 
music  in  songs  has  at  the  hands  of  the  great  masters, 
Schubert,  Schumann  and  Brahms,  as  well  as  of  many 
composers  in  all  countries,  produced  works  which 
respond  to  the  highest  standards  of  art.  Besides 
giving  specifically  lyrical  expression  to  all  human 
emotions  in  every  form,  they  can  give,  and  have 


256  AESTHETICS,   ART 

given,  lyrical  forms  to  dramatic  incidents  (as  in  the 
"  Erlkonig  "  by  Schubert  and  by  Loewe),  and  even 
convey  complex  thought  and  definite  impressions  of 
characteristic  scenes  and  landscapes.  As  instances 
of  this  growing  power  of  lyrical  individualisation, 
I  may  single  out  a  song  by  a  young  composer,  Briickler, 
who  died  prematurely,  rendering  in  most  perfect 
musical  form  a  poem  by  Hebbel  called  "  Gebet  " ; 
while  landscapes  and  the  corresponding  moods  in 
highly  individualised  and  beautiful  character  find 
their  lyrical  response  in  Strauss 's  "  Morgen,"  in 
Schumann's  "  Sonntag  am  Rhein,"  and  in  Faure*'s 
setting  of  a  poem  by  Verlaine  called  "  Clair  de  Lane." 
The  first  of  these  three  songs  marks  a  restraint 
and  subordination,  both  in  the  melody  as  well  as  in 
the  accompaniment,  which  bring  out  the  poetic  value 
and  definiteness  of  meaning  in  the  words.  I  shall 
(when  we  consider  the  melodrama)  develop  this  point 
in  suggesting  a  new  form  of  lyrical  presentation, 
ensuring  still  further  the  lyrical  value  of  poetry  when 
joined  to  music. 

THE  OPERA 

The  fusion  of  language  and  music,  coupled  with 
action  manifest  to  the  eye  in  the  drama,  underlies 
the  development  of  the  opera.  In  the  early  dramas 
lyrical  parts  were  interspersed,  as  on  the  classical 
stage  from  the  Dionysiac  festival  onwards,  though 
the  chorus,  song  and  dance  were  essential  parts  of 
the  performance.  In  its  earlier  phases  the  principle 
of  the  opera  was  essentially  lyrical,  so  that  the 
dramatic  principles  were  to  a  considerable  degree 
subordinated  ;  and  though  in  Mozart's  Operas  and 
in  Beethoven's  "  Fidelio,"  as  well  as  in  a  great  many 
of  the  works  of  eminent  pre-Wagnerian  composers, 
the  dramatic  principle  was  recognised  and  impressed 


THE   WAGNERIAN    MUSIC-DRAMA        257 

—even  including  to  some  degree  the  introduction  of 
definite  motifs — especially  in  the  exquisitely  melodious 
Italian  operas  of  the  last  century,  the  lyrical  beauty 
of  the  arias,  duets,  trios,  quartets,  quintets  and 
choruses,  with  the  more  subordinated  accompaniment 
of  the  orchestra,  became  independent  lyrical  inter- 
ludes, asserting  themselves  in  their  single  qualities 
more  or  less  irrespective  of  the  dramatic  flow  and 
unity  of  the  action.  Distinct  from  these  was  the 
recitative,  a  form  of  quasi-lyrical  chant,  which  con- 
veyed the  less  lyrical  portions  of  the  action. 

With  Wagner  a  new  era  in  the  development  of  the 
opera  is  inaugurated.  By  his  innovations  he,  in  the 
first  instance,  no  doubt  expressed  the  current  feeling 
of  the  common-sense  critic  among  the  people  in 
pointing  out  the  contradiction,  if  not  absurdity,  within 
the  convention  that  people  in  the  ordinary  course 
of  life  should  sing  where  they  naturally  speak,  and 
that  the  exalted  mood  of  purely  formal  and  lyrical 
music  should  be  wedded  to  the  natural  and  sober 
course  of  cause  and  effect  in  human  actions.  He 
thus  laid  down  the  canons  of  the  music-drama  by, 
in  the  first  place,  harmonising,  as  far  as  possible, 
words  and  music,  the  music  being  the  adequate 
emotional  or  lyrical  expression  or  concomitant  of 
the  individualised  meanings  conveyed  in  words. 
This  led  to  the  establishment  of  his  Leit-motifs.  But 
he  went  much  further  in  this  individualisation  in 
using,  above  all,  the  orchestra  to  strengthen  and  to 
complete  the  emotional  content,  as  well  as  the  en- 
vironment and  its  interaction  with  the  characters  and 
incidents.  One  further  important  step  beyond  the 
mere  music-drama  lay  in  consciously  and  definitely 
calling  in  all  the  other  arts — those  of  vision — to 
intensify  and  complete  the  full  unity  of  dramatic 
representation.  He  called  this  All-kunst  (a  pan- 
artistic  work).  Finally,  he  rightly  maintained  that 
18 


258  AESTHETICS,   ART 

the  ideal  composer  of  such  music-dramas  should, 
from  the  very  outset,  conceive  his  dramatic  produc- 
tion as  a  whole,  and  that  therefore  he  should  be  the 
writer  of  his  own  text  or  libretto — words  and  music 
flowing  from  the  same  inventive  and  emotional 
source. 

Now,  there  can  be  no  doubt  that,  as  a  pure  musician, 
especially  as  a  composer  of  orchestral  music,  he  stands, 
and  will  ever  stand,  on  a  very  high  pinnacle  in  the 
history  of  music.  There  can  also  be  no  doubt  that 
as  a  dramatic  and  lyric  poet  he  also  attained  to  a  high 
rank.  The  Meister singer,  as  a  great  historical  comedy 
reflecting  in  perfect  action  as  well  as  diction  the 
complex  characteristics  in  the  life  of  mediaeval 
Germany,  and  at  the  same  time  presenting  the  central 
idea  of  the  struggle  between  the  old  and  the  new 
schools  of  poetry  expressive  of  that  age,  is  a  master- 
piece and  one  of  the  greatest  literary  and  dramatic 
comedies  ever  written,  placing  Wagner  in  close  proxi- 
mity to  Moliere.  So  also  some  of  the  passages  con- 
veying the  great  central  idea  of  the  struggle  between 
night  and  day,  the  world  of  overpowering  feeling 
and  conventionalised  thought  embodied  in  Tristan 
and  Isolde,  have  qualities  which  remind  us  of  the 
ancient  Greek  tragedies.  Furthermore,  his  principle 
of  completely  harmonising  the  visual  aspects  of 
dramatic  presentation  with  the  action,  in  scenery, 
costume  and  grouping,  is  completely  justified.  Nothing 
can  be  more  impressive  than  the  simple  device  of 
the  rolling  clouds  passing  by  in  the  entrjacte  of 
Parsifal  to  suggest  visually  the  powerful  composition 
and  orchestration  of  that  transition  between  the 
two  acts.  But  there  are  aspects  and  instances  in 
his  drama  in  which  his  actual  work  failed  to  realise 
his  artistic  principles  and  theories.  The  scene- 
painting  and  costuming,  as  well  as  grouping,  are 
often  quite  inadequate  to  the  suggestion  of  grace  or 


THE  "  ROMANTIC  "   OPERA  259 

sublimity,  which  the  dramatic  situation  and  the 
music  itself  lead  the  audience  to  expect  ;  and  they 
thus  strike  an  inharmonious  note.  His  taste,  his 
sense  of  proportion,  are  frequently  at  fault.  His 
doctrinaire  (Schopenhaueresque)  theories  of  philosophy, 
religion,  sociology  and  ethics  are  inadequately 
expressed  by  his  art  or  merely  indicated  by  didactic 
phrases — such,  for  instance,  as  his  theory  of  the  all- 
powerful  Will  in  the  hero  "  who  does  not  know  fear  " 
in  Siegfried.  The  Christian  ideas  of  purity  and 
simplicity  of  mind,  coupled  with  the  doctrine  of 
"  Service  "  leading  to  Salvation,  in  Parsifal,  impressed 
upon  the  audience  by  the  mere  phrase  "  the  simple 
dolt  "  (der  reine  Thor),  or  the  repetition  of  the 
word  dienen,  are  artistic  solecisms.  As  regards  the 
latter  work,  moreover,  "  a  simple  dolt  "  can  never 
become  a  hero  by  merely  repeating  the  words  "  I  do 
not  know  "  (ich  weiss  es  nicht).  Perhaps  in  Siegfried 
the  Nietzschean  superman  who  "  knows  no  fear  " 
may  approximate  to  the  hero.  Moreover,  the  same 
artistic  weakness  leads  him  into  what  the  French  call 
des  longueurs,  undramatic  and  unconvincing  in  their 
literary  and  even  musical  presentation,  which  interrupt 
the  continuity  of  action  or  weaken  even  the  lyrical 
and  emotional  impressiveness.  They  simply  become 
tedious.  His  taste  did  not  always  tell  him  when  to 
stop. 

Nevertheless,  in  most  of  his  operas  and  especially 
in  his  "  romantic  operas  "  he  manifests  the  supreme 
artistic  taste  and  tact  of  a  great  musical  genius  and 
thinker  which  have  led  him  to  establish  a  central 
principle  which  must  ever  guide  the  music-drama. 
It  will  be  noted  that,  with  the  exception  of  Rienzi, 
practically  all  his  operas  are  romantic,  mystic,  or 
lyrical  in  subject  and  in  elaboration.  This  applies 
notably  to  his  Lohengrin  and  his  Tristan,  which  are 
lyrical  and  romantically  mystical,  both  in  subject 


260  AESTHETICS,   ART 

and  in  treatment  ;  as  the  subject  of  the  Meister singer 
and  Tannhauser  is  centrally  lyrical,  namely,  the 
contest  of  the  lyrical  poets  forming  the  centre  of 
action,  the  former  with  the  romantic  background  of 
mediaeval  Niirenberg,  the  latter  with  the  mystical 
atmosphere  of  Christian  folklore  ;  while  the  Flying 
Dutchman  and  the  Nibelungen  Ring  are  the  lyrical 
renderings  of  Northern  and  mediaeval  mysticism  and 
mythology  ;  until,  finally,  we  come  to  Christian 
mysticism  in  Parsifal.  All  these,  by  the  subject- 
matter,  as  well  as  the  actual  scenery  in  which  the 
drama  is  set,  are  removed  from  the  sober  environment 
and  criteria  of  daily  life  and  are  raised  into  a  more 
mystical  and  emotional  sphere,  where  the  highest 
lyrical  and  musical  form  of  expression  harmonises 
with  the  atmosphere  and  mood  of  the  drama  and 
certainly  is  not  in  direct  and  absurd  contradiction 
to  the  events  enacted.  We  are  not  constantly  jarred 
by  our  awakening  to  the  fact  that  people  do  not  sing 
instead  of  speaking. 

Thus,  unless  the  dramatic  composer,  in  the  subject 
which  he  elaborates  by  all  the  powerful  means  of  his 
art,  can  raise  the  audience  into  that  lyrical  and 
romantic  mood  which  justifies  the  introduction  of 
music,  the  opera  cannot  be  a  perfect  expression  of 
art.  Bygone  ages,  removed  from  this  immediate 
association  with  our  present  life,  and  remoter  localities 
with  their  own  life  distant  and  distinct  from  our  own, 
convincingly  and  constrainingly  presented  so  as  to 
eliminate  the  sober  and  interested  thought  of  our  daily 
life,  may  thus  supplement  that  lyrical  requisite.  So 
also  the  great  and  leading  emotions  of  life,  above  all 
love,  can  in  themselves  supply  that  lyrical  foundation 
upon  which  the  imaginary  illusion  is  evoked.  Even 
the  comparatively  proximate  period  of  the  middle 
of  the  last  century  can  thus  be  converted  into 
a  more  romantic  background  for  the  action  of  the 


THE   MELODRAMA  261 

exquisitely  lyrical  music-drama  La  Vie  de  Boheme 
by  Puccini,  because  the  purely  lyrical  love-story  forms 
the  centre  of  dramatic  interest.  But  the  limits  to 
this  form  of  art  are  soon  reached  whenever  the  actual 
story  and  the  dramatic  action  itself  force  us  into  the 
mood  of  definite  realistic  apprehension  of  the  actual 
life  in  which  we  are  living. 

THE  MELODRAMA 

There  is  one  form  of  dramatic  music  in  which  music 
is  combined  with  literary  art  in  a  somewhat  subordi- 
nate and  yet  effective  function,  providing  an  aesthetic 
element  to  strengthen  literary  meaning  and  form, 
the  harmonised  whole  being  best  termed  Melodrama. 

Music  is  associated  with  poetic  diction  or  dramatic 
action,  separately  and  by  itself,  to  harmonise  with 
the  general  tone  and  mood  of  the  meanings,  incidents 
and  situations  the  ideas  or  feelings  conveyed  by  the 
poem  or  drama — emotionally  to  prepare  the  audience 
to  receive  those  meanings,  to  apprehend  and  to  be 
moved  by  the  scenic  situation,  incident  and  action, 
and  thus  to  intensify  poetic  or  dramatic  presentation. 
Thus  music,  chiefly  instrumental,  but  occasionally 
even  vocal  and  choral,  acts  as  an  emotional  founda- 
tion and  accompaniment  to  definite  expressions. 
Its  introduction  is  now  generally  limited  to  touching 
scenes,  especially  in  plays,  and  is  thus  associated  with 
sentiment  and  even  sentimentality,  and  in  conse- 
quence may  have  fallen  into  disrepute.  There  can 
be  no  doubt,  however,  that  its  essential  function,  when 
artistically  and  judiciously  applied,  is  aesthetically 
effective  and  eminently  admissible,  and  that  it  has 
its  historical  foundation  in  the  past  from  the  Greek 
drama  down  to  Wagner.  It  is  also  an  essential  part 
of  the  highly  artistic  production  of  the  ballet,  notably 
in  the  Russian  ballet,  and  the  higher  forms  of 
pantomime.  Instead  of  the  song,  ballad,  or  lied,  in 


262  AESTHETICS,   ART 

which  words  and  music  are  actually  merged  into  each 
other,  there  is  a  most  effective  and  beautiful  form  of 
combination  without  actual  fusion  in  the  monotone 
recital  of  poems,  with  musical  accompaniment,  which 
the  French  assign  to  their  diseur  or  diseuse  :  in 
which  the  poetic  recitation  is  strengthened,  height- 
ened and  beautified  by  the  corresponding  musical 
accompaniment.  A  remarkable  and  interesting  form 
of  such  harmonious  combination  was  recently  pre- 
sented by  the  composer  (Mr.  Armstrong  Gibbs)  of  the 
music  for  the  Cambridge  performance  of  the  Oresteian 
trilogy  of  -^Eschylus,  in  which,  in  some  of  the  choruses, 
the  orchestra  reproduced  line  by  line  and  almost 
word  for  word  harmonious  musical  expression  of  the 
rhythm  and  recited  words. 

There  is  thus  a  new  sphere  of  fruitful  artistic 
endeavour  opened  out  to  the  poet  and  dramatist  in 
co-operation  with  the  musical  composer,  in  that 
longer  or  shorter  poems  of  high  quality,  lyrical  or 
epic — or  even  didactic — can  be  rendered  in  perfect 
recitation  with  the  thoroughly  adequate  and  respon- 
sive accompaniment  of  a  musical  composition  of  the 
very  highest  quality.  This  principle  may  accordingly 
be  carried  still  further  into  dramatic  representations 
on  the  stage. 

(D)  BEAUTY  IN  NATURE 

We  have  in  the  First  Part  of  this  book  endea- 
voured to  define  the  distinctive  character  of  the 
aesthetic  attitude  of  mind  with  regard  to  Nature  and 
life.  Though  no  doubt  this  quality  of  the  mind  can 
be  cultivated  and  refined  and  is  often  a  mark  of 
higher  mental  disposition  and  education,  neverthe- 
less it  is  possessed  by,  and  is  active  even  among,  the 
most  uncultured  and  among  those  in  whom  the  sense 
of  beauty  occupies  but  a  small  part  of  their  attention 
and  mental  activity.  A  perfect  spring  or  summer 


CATHOLICITY   TOWARDS    NATURE       263 

day  in  the  garden  or  woods  and  among  the  trees 
and  flowers  in  bloom  with  the  song  of  birds  or  mur- 
muring of  the  brook,  or  the  sight  of  a  brilliant  sunset, 
will  rouse  even  the  most  insensible  to  some  form  of 
aesthetic  admiration,  even  though  they  be  not  con- 
scious of  the  aesthetic  quality  of  their  pleasure.  How 
active  this  aesthetic  habit  of  mind  is  even  in  the 
uncultured,  we  have  already  seen  in  the  qualities 
which  determine  their  choice  in  the  objects  of  daily 
use  and  in  the  adjectives  which  they  adopt  to 
express  every  kind  of  approval  or  disapproval.  As 
regards  the  contemplation  of  natural  scenery,  most 
people  are  guided  by  their  individual  predisposition 
and  personal  preferences,  especially  by  their  habitual 
home  surroundings  and  the  associations  subconsciously 
there  established.  But  often  their  aesthetic  longings 
and  preferences  will  be  produced  or  strengthened  by 
unfamiliarity  and  contrast,  as  the  town-bred  man  or 
woman  will  delight  in  the  relief  from  confinement, 
monotony  of  street  scenes  and  their  squalor,  and 
rejoice  in  or  long  for  the  country  and  rural  scenery. 

All  these  subjective  biases  lead  to  a  want  of 
catholicity  in  the  appreciation  of  natural  scenery 
or  the  limited  admiration  of  striking  and  strongly 
manifest  effects  and  contrasts — to  the  romantic  or 
manifestly  picturesque.  High  or  rugged  mountains, 
rushing  rivers  and  waterfalls  (such  as  Ruysdael  de- 
lighted in  painting),  strong  contrasts  of  colour,  light 
and  shade,  act  on  even  the  duller  senses  and  imagina- 
tion ;  while  more  placid  and  mild  scenery,  with  toned 
harmonies  instead  of  contrasts,  are  often  overlooked, 
or  do  not  stimulate  the  blunted  senses  and  feelings 
into  aesthetic  emotion  and  admiration.  Apart  from 
local  associations,  habitual  or  more  momentary,  it 
requires  some  refinement  and  aesthetic  training  to 
discover  the  intense  beauty  in  gently  rolling  or  even 
flat  country,  with  the  change  in  light  and  atmospheric 


264  ESTHETICS,   ART 

effects,  or  a  simple  turn  in  the  road,  with  fields  on 
either  side  and  meadows  full  of  wild  flowers,  or  a 
bank  or  hedge  with  its  world  of  delicate  forms  in 
colour  or  in  silhouette  against  a  blue  or  darkening  sky. 
Still,  all  is  there  for  the  eye,  the  mind  and  the  heart 
that  can  discover  the  rich  treasure  of  beauty  revealing 
itself  in  Nature.  We  can  all  become  non-painting 
landscape  painters  for  the  nonce,  and  thus  make  life 
the  richer  and  our  souls  the  nobler. 

(E)  THE  ART  OF  LIVING 

Before  we  leave  the  subject  of  selective  and  creative 
art,  which  together  constitute  the  whole  sphere  of 
aesthetics,  there  is  one  wider  sphere  of  aesthetic 
activity  to  which  attention  must  be  drawn,  though 
the  activities  concerned  do  not  deal  with  the  selection 
or  fashioning  of  definite  material  objects  which  are 
meant  to  respond  to  the  satisfaction  of  the  aesthetic 
instinct.  The  material  dealt  with  is  in  fact  the 
Wholeness  of  Life  itself,  acted  upon  directly  from  the 
aesthetic  point  of  view.  These  facts  are,  no  doubt, 
also  related  to  Pragmatics  and  Ethics,  where  they  may 
have  to  be  reconsidered. 

We  are  concerned  in  fact  with  the  "  Art  of  Living." 
Living  itself,  physical,  human  and  social,  is  not 
considered  from  its  scientific  or  intelligible  aspect, 
or  from  that  of  use,  or  of  Tightness  and  goodness, 
but  from  that  of  harmony  or  beauty.  As  we  have 
found  that  sense-perceptions  as  well  as  convictions 
lead  us  back  ultimately  to  the  principle  of  harmonism, 
so  we  shall  find  that  utility  rests  upon  the  same 
principles,  and  that  goodness  and  virtue,  as  the  ancient 
Greeks  long  ago  maintained,  are  essentially  allied  to 
beauty.  But  as  to  the  Art  of  Living  in  civilised 
social  communities,  the  response  of  life  to  our  sense 
of  harmony  and  beauty  fills  to  a  considerable  degree 
our  consciousness  and  stimulates  our  efforts.  In 


BEAUTY   IN    SOCIAL  LIFE  265 

plain  words,  our  attitude  towards  our  fellow-men, 
singly  and  collectively,  is  not  guided  and  affected  by 
the  interest  as  to  what  material  advantage  we  can 
receive  from  them,  or  they  from  us  ;  nor  by  the 
feeling  of  our  respective  duties  to  one  another  ; 
but  rather  by  the  motive  of  responding  to  the  social 
satisfaction  and  pleasure,  the  amenities  of  our  social 
relationships,  and  the  consequent  perfect  social  organi- 
sation, its  rules,  customs,  traditions  and  tastes, 
which  produce  or  lead  to  harmonious  relation 
between  people,  securing  peace  and  more  than  peace, 
social  gratification,  elevation  and  refinement,  to  the 
community.  In  this  sphere  of  intercourse  among 
civilised  beings  all  those  manners  and  rules  of  conduct 
and  deportment  have  grown  which,  above  the  mere 
necessity  of  preventing  actual  friction  and  contention 
or  of  facilitating  interested  business  intercourse, 
tend  to  make  human  society  in  every  way  beautiful 
and  refined.  It  might  astonish  even  the  most  sober 
student  of  economics  and  ethics  were  he  to  consider 
how  much  of  the  actual  efforts  of  human  beings,  from 
the  most  highly  cultured  to  those  least  developed  in 
thought  and  taste,  is  directed  (sometimes  misguided) 
into  these  channels  of  harmonious  social  inter-relations 
which  constitute  the  Art  of  Living.  In  fact,  if  we 
were  to  concentrate  our  attention  upon  the  social 
evolution  of  even  our  most  material  acts,  we  should 
find  that  they  are  at  a  very  early  stage  raised  out  of 
the  sphere  of  necessity  into  that  of  comparative 
luxury,  where  they  become  a  matter,  not  of  need  or 
use,  but  of  art.  This,  as  we  have  already  seen,  is 
the  case  with  regard  to  the  fundamental  necessity  of 
housing,  from  the  cave-dwellers  onwards,  leading  up 
to  the  development  of  the  art  of  architecture  ;  the 
same  applies  to  the  necessity  of  protecting  the  body 
against  the  inclemencies  of  the  weather  by  means  of 
clothing  ;  and  also  in  the  provision  of  sustenance 


266  AESTHETICS,   ART 

for  the  human  body  in  the  production  and  consump- 
tion of  food.  As  with  housing,  so  the  rudimentary 
bear-skin  leads  through  innumerable  stages  to  the 
production  of  Paris  and  London  fashions  in  dress 
and  of  the  numberless  details  of  wearing  apparel, 
their  texture  and  ornamentation,  which  make  up 
modern  costume.  The  same  applies  to  food,  from 
the  uncooked  raw  meat  or  berries  of  the  savage  to 
the  refinements  of  modern  gastronomy.  Though  we 
may  all  agree  that  gluttony  and  all  forms  of  intemper- 
ance in  food  and  drink  are  among  the  lowest  of 
physical  vices  and  weaknesses,  and  that  even  when 
the  refinements  of  culinary  art  fill  the  consciousness 
and  the  activity  of  any  individual  out  of  proportion 
to  the  wholeness  of  the  aims  and  objects  of  life  they 
become  revolting,  still,  the  fact  remains,  that  the 
refinements  and  arts  in  the  preparation  of  food,  the 
way  in  which  it  is  eaten,  the  manner  in  which  it  is 
served,  and  the  degree  in  which  it  is  subordinated  to 
higher  social  and  spiritual  converse  in  the  convivium* 
the  dinner,  are  an  achievement  of  higher  life  and 
civilisation.  The  mot  of  the  artistic  French  chef, 
who  summarised  his  criticism  of  his  master,  in  spite 
of  all  his  kindness  and  considerateness  to  him,  by 
the  phrase,  accompanied  by  a  shrug  of  the  shoulders, 
"  Mais  Monsieur  mange,  Monsieur  ne  dine  pas  " 
(My  master  eats,  he  does  not  dine),  illustrates  an 
advance  in  civilised  refinement. 

If  this  is  so  even  with  regard  to  the  purely  physical 
necessities  of  life,  it  is  still  more  so  in  social  intercourse, 
where  it  ultimately  leads  to  what  we  call  good  manners, 
created  for  social  amenity,  and  to  those  varied  forms 
of  entertainment  which  constitute  the  body  of  our 

1  It  is  remarkable,  as  Cicero  pointed  out,  that  the  Latin  word  for 
a  dinner  was  convivium  (feast),  which  places  the  accent  on  the  social 
intercourse,  and  is  higher  than  the  Greek  term  symposium,  which  lays 
the  accent  on  the  mere  physical  act  of  drinking  together. 


BEAUTY   IN    SELF-RELATIONSHIP        267 

social  existence  beyond  our  direct  work  and  duties  and 
secure  for  us  the  proper  regard  and  consideration 
of  our  fellow-men  and  to  ourselves  the  confirmation 
of  self-esteem  and  self-respect.  The  important  fact 
remains  that  this  art  applies  to  every  class  in  all 
civilised  communities,  however  much  their  actual 
standards  may  differ  among  each  other.  They  all 
are  more  or  less  consciously  and  directly  subject  to 
a  certain  rule  of  social  conduct  which  constitutes 
the  Art  of  Living  and  absorbs  a  considerable  part 
of  their  active  energies  and  endeavours,  and  this 
Art  of  Living  is  distinctly  and  wholly  a  matter  of 
aesthetics.1  Not  only  in  his  relation  to  his  fellow-men 
(and  here  I  am  again  anticipating  what,  from  another 
point  of  view,  is  a  part  of  Ethics),  but  in  his  conscious 
relation  to  himself  is  this  Art  of  Living  of  supreme 
importance.  Beginning  again  with  the  purely  physi- 
cal aspect,  man  is  urged  on  to  consider  his  own 
physical  health,  the  perfect  functioning  of  his  several 
organs  and  their  complete  inter-relations  to  one 
another,  and  he  then  does  this  not  merely  by,  as  it 
were,  reflex  action  to  avoid  a  definite  pain  or  dis- 
comfort, but  in  order  to  make  of  himself,  on  the  physical 
side,  a  perfect  human  being,  in  perfect  harmony 
with  man  as  a  work  of  art.  Cleanliness  and  all  care 
of  the  human  body  belong  to  these,  and  all  the  rules 
of  good  manners  and  deportment  in  the  care  of  them. 
Rising  beyond  this  simplest  physical  phase,  he  must 
make  of  himself  an  attractive  human  being,  physically, 
mentally,  morally,  and  socially.  This  aim  and  desire 
are  not  only  the  outcome  of  the  natural  sexual  instinct, 
to  attract  others  in  this  sphere  of  human  relationship  ; 
but  also,  if  not  chiefly,  from  the  purely  social  point 
of  view,  to  cultivate  and  to  realise  in  himself  all  those 
forms  of  personal  attractiveness  and  charm,  without 
vanity,  which  appeal  to  his  fellow-beings  on  the  purely 

1  Aristodemocracy,  pp.  24-277  ;   also  Eugenics,  Civics,  and  Ethics. 


268  ESTHETICS,   ART 

aesthetic  side ;  again,  physically  mentally  and 
morally.  This  applies  to  all  social  intercourse  of 
daily  life,  but  especially  to  those  aspects  of  it  in  which 
the  harmony  of  such  intercourse  is  the  aesthetic  object 
and  end,  as  is  the  case  in  every  work  of  art  :  in 
play,  in  athletic  games,  as  well  as  in  lighter  and  more 
graceful  amusements,  according  to  age  and  circum- 
stances ;  in  the  good  manners  which  constitute  the 
art  of  attractive  intercourse,  as  well  as  in  the 
mental  and  intellectual  refinements  producing  tact, 
the  art  of  conversation  and  all  the  other  arts  of 
life.  By  all  the  contributory  means  of  education 
and  self-improvement  man  thus  tends  to  make  of 
himself  on  the  aesthetic  side  a  perfect  being.  Taste 
and  tact,  as  well  as  considerateness  and  grace,  are  the 
aesthetic  concomitants  of  the  Art  of  Living. 

CONCLUSION 

To  summarise  the  foregoing  consideration  of  the 
principles  of  aesthetics  in  their  bearing  upon  the  main 
thesis  of  this  book,  we  must  fully  realise  that,  among 
all  the  activities  of  the  human  intelligence,  art  is  the 
most  direct  and  complete  function  and  expression 
of  the  harmoniotropic  and  aristotropic  properties 
of  the  mind.  Though  we  have  seen  in  the 
chapter  on  Epistemology,  and  though  we  shall  see 
in  the  succeeding  chapters  on  Pragmatics,  Ethics, 
Politics,  and  Religion,  that,  ultimately,  all  these 
activities  are  founded  upon  these  essential  principles 
and  functions  of  the  mind,  the  mental  activities  to 
which  they  lead  man  are  not  to  the  same  degree 
directly  produced  by  the  satisfaction  of  the  aesthetic 
instincts  and  aims,  as  is  the  case  in  art. 

To  apply  the  principles  of  conscious  evolution 
to  art,  the  aesthetic  attitude  of  mind,  taste,  each 
age  and  nationality  must  aim  at  expressing  fully 
and  adequately  its  own  highest  national  mental- 


CONSCIOUS   EVOLUTION  269 

ity  and  culture  in  the  aesthetic  sphere,  and  not  borrow 
its  art  or  be  affected  in  its  taste  by  the  art  and  taste 
of    foreign    and    exotic    modes    or    standards.     No 
doubt   one   aspect  of  culture   and   high  civilisation 
consists  in  the   inclusion  of   the   historic   sense  and 
intellectual    altruism    which    produce    appreciation 
of  the  life  and  thought  of  bygone  ages  as  well  as  of 
the  national  life  and  spirit  of  alien  peoples.     But 
though  the  aesthetic  horizon  may  be  greatly  widened, 
diversified  and  enriched,  and  may  lead  to  appreciation 
and  production  of  various  styles  and  classes  of  artistic 
works   not   indigenous   to   the   national   spirit   of   a 
people,  they  must  always  envisage  these  consciously  as 
not  directly  the  expression  of  their  own  taste.     It  is 
also  true  that  it  may  be  one  of  the  characteristics 
of  an  age  to  find  expression  of  its  own  mentality 
and   culture   in  works   of  bygone   ages   and   foreign 
origin,  and  may  thus  directly  embody  their  peculiar 
qualities  in  its  own  works,  while  modifying  them  in 
the  spirit  of  its  own  national  and  historical  character. 
Thus  the  age  of  Louis  XV  in  France  was  inspired 
by  the  Far  East  in  producing  the  Chinoiserie  of  its 
peculiar  French  style,  which  responded  to  something 
in  its  own  artificial  culture  manifesting  similar  ten- 
dencies ;    but  this  orientalised  element  was  essenti- 
ally modified  and  subordinated  to  its  own  French 
character.     In  any  case  the  aim  of  all  sincere  art 
must  always  be  to  express  itself  directly,  fully  and 
honestly  as  the  true  inspiration  of  its  own  mentality. 
But  here  again  we  discover  a  tendency  on  the  part 
of  artists  and  critics  to  conceive  of  such  an   evolu- 
tionary   progression    of    art   fatalistically,    i.e.   as  if 
every  wave  of  taste  and  of  art -work  of  any  temporary 
and  ephemeral  school  or  set  of  artists,  at  times  quite 
unrepresentative  of  the  true  spirit  of  their  age  or 
nation,  was,  merely  because  it  exists  and  is  productive, 
thereby  justified  as  a  legitimate  or  perfect  expression 


270  AESTHETICS,   ART 

of  the  age  :  that  what  is,  is  by  that  mere  fact,  justified. 
To  be  really  representative  of  the  age,  art  must  not 
be  the  expression  of  any  or  every  manifestation  of 
the  national  life  at  any  period  or  in  any  aspect  or 
movement  of  the  age  ;  but  must  be  representative 
of  the  BEST  in  each  age,  the  highest  expression  of  its 
culture.  The  actual  time  in  which  we  now  live,  the 
years  immediately  succeeding  the  Great  War,  mani- 
fest, like  other  similar  periods  in  history,  on  the 
negative  side  the  disruption  of  the  established 
standards  which  preceded  the  catastrophic  crisis 
which  led  to  the  struggle  itself.  Most  of  us  foresaw 
that  the  first  phenomena  to  result  from  the  war 
would  be  that  our  moral,  social  and  economical  if 
not  our  intellectual,  traditions  would  be  uprooted,  and 
that  the  dregs  and  dissolvent  social  elements  would 
be  forced  to  the  surface  ;  the  feelings,  laws  and  duties 
as  regards  the  value  of  human  life  itself,  of  the  family 
ties  and  social  traditions,  of  economic  laws,  of  manners, 
conventions  and  institutions  would  lose  their  con- 
straining power  and  validity,  and  the  activity  and 
energy  of  the  younger  people,  filled  with  vitality  and 
the  passion  for  new  life  and  things,  would  be  essen- 
tially negative  and  revolutionary. 

Though  the  expression  of  such  a  spirit  in  the 
domain  of  art,  chiefly  directed  against  the  established 
standards  of  taste  and  of  artistic  methods,  does  thus 
in  truth  express  this  negative  result  of  our  post-war 
period,  it  cannot  be  considered  a  positive  expression 
of  the  best  that  is  in  us,  even  as  we  are  affected 
by  the  great  upheaval  of  war.  There  is  in  us,  and 
will  undoubtedly  come  to  the  surface,  a  more  positive 
expression  of  our  national  and  historical  genius,  the 
best  in  our  own  civilisation  corresponding  to  the 
lasting  character  of  our  national  life,  upon  which 
the  war  and  its  tragic  teaching  will  have  acted  as 
the  great  Liberator  and  Purifier  (Katharsis). 


CHAPTER    III 

PRAGMATICS  l 

AMONG  the  more  practical  activities  of  the  human 
mind  which  deal  with  the  production  of  ideal  states 
with  the  "  ought  to  be  "  (ola  elvai  Set),  in  contradistinc- 
tion to  the  theoretical  activities  of  science,  which 
deals  with  things  as  they  are  and  aims  at  the  complete 
knowledge  of  these  things  as  they  are,  following  upon 
aesthetics  and  art,  we  come  to  Pragmatics,  which  is 
concerned  with  what  we  call  the  "  useful."  This 
department  forms  a  transition  from  aesthetics  to 
ethics.  Now,  the  relations  of  pragmatics  to  aesthetics 
on  the  one  side,  and  to  ethics  on  the  other,  present, 
from  the  very  outset,  a  problem  which  has  led  to 
considerable  discussion  among  the  exponents  of 
these  departments  and  philosophers  in  general.  Just 
as  there  exists  a  considerable  school  of  those  who 
uphold  utilitarian  ethics,  as  well  as  utilitarian  politics 
and  perhaps  even  utilitarian  religion  ;  so  there  are 
those  who  seek  for  the  principle  of  beauty  and  art 
in  the  useful,  from  which  they  consider  the  aesthetic 
manifestations  to  have  been  derived.  We  have  al- 
ready touched  upon  this  question  in  connection  with 
the  earliest  forms  of  selective,  as  well  as  of  creative, 
art,  more  especially  in  relation  to  architecture  ;  and 
we  have  there  maintained  that  the  connotation  of 
"  utility  "  and  the  "  useful  "  does  not  lead  us  down 
to  a  primary  principle,  but  to  one  which  requires 
further  analysis  into  its  elementary  component 

1  The  word  is  here  used  in  its  older  significance,  and  in  no  relation 
to  the  special  meaning  assigned  to  it  in  modern  systems  of  philosophy 
known  as  "  Pragmatism." 

271 


272  PRAGMATICS 

parts.  The  creative  energy,  which  leads  to  use  and 
utility,  may  possibly  produce  a  thing  of  beauty  ; 
but  the  creative  impulse  which  leads  to  such  activity 
does  not  aim  at  producing  harmony  of  form  in  itself 
and  for  itself.  But  it  may  be  held  that  in  such 
pragmatic  activity  the  object  created  does  manifest 
harmony  between  the  purpose  for  which  the  object 
is  created  and  the  means  of  realising  this  purpose 
in  the  thing  produced  ;  also  that  the  creator  of  the 
"  pragmatic  "  or  useful  work  is  moved  by  the  instinct 
or  conscious  desire  to  harmonise  means  to  ends.  In 
both  these  cases  it  would  then  primarily  and  ulti- 
mately be  the  harmoniotropic  instinct  and  desire 
which  underlies  his  activity,  as  it  is  also  his  aristo- 
tropic  instinct  and  aim  to  choose  the  best,  and  not 
the  inferior  or  second  best. 

As  we  have  already  maintained,  use,  moreover,  is 
purely  individual,  if  not  momentary,  and  varies 
constantly  with  the  variations  in  the  individual,  as 
well  as  with  those  in  his  environment.  It  is  therefore 
of  such  infinite  variety  that  it  cannot  produce  a 
general  mental  or  material  principle  which  is  lasting 
and  can  act  either  in  theory  or  in  practice  as  a  guide 
or  norm  to  the  human  mind.  In  actual  life  it  simply 
means  that  "  we  must  take  things  as  they  come  and 
make  the  best  of  them,  fitting  means  to  ends."  It  can 
never  produce  beauty  by  itself,  nor  truth  nor  goodness, 
nor  lead  to  the  better  life  individually  or  collectively. 
In  so  far  as,  in  its  elementary  form,  it  might  be  defined 
as  corresponding  to  the"  line  of  least  resistance  "  or  to 
the  economy  of  force  and  movement — to  the  straightest 
line — it  is  in  itself  based  upon  the  principle  of  mathe- 
matical regularity  and  symmetry,  which  we  have  seen 
is  a  primary  expression  of  the  harmonistic  principle. 
However  you  extend  and  intensify  its  meaning,  deep 
down,  wide  afield,  and  upwards  in  height,  you  cannot 
raise  it  into  a  general  principle  and  a  guide  to  full 


UTILITY  NOT  A  FINAL  PRINCIPLE         273 

understanding  or  perfect  conduct.  You  may  gener- 
alise it  infinitely,  raise  it  out  of  its  literal  and  direct 
meaning  to  the  highest  degree ,  and  say  that  the  most 
useful  is  ultimately  the  most  moral,  the  most  beautiful 
and  conducive  to  the  well-being  of  a  community  or 
of  all  humanity,  that  it  finally  leads  to  the  divine 
harmony  of  the  world — the  term  will  not  bear  such 
a  strain  of  meaning.  In  the  "  ought  to  be  "  of  life 
you  can  never  determine  the  end  by  the  means,  as 
little  as  you  can  define  the  attractiveness  or  moral 
value  of  the  place  you  wish  to  reach  simply  by  the 
facilities  of  transportation  to  it,  unless  there  is  no 
difference  between  heaven  and  hell,  however  well 
paved  the  road  to  either.  Sophistry  does  not  lead 
to  truth.  Opportunism  does  not  make  the  states- 
man, facility  and  rapidity  of  production  do  not  make 
the  artist. 

However  fallacious  most  reasoning  which  contrasts 
theory  and  practice  with  regard  to  things  of  the  mind 
may  be,  the  natural  instinct  which  has  led  people  to 
oppose  to  one  another  the  attitudes  and  activities 
which  deal,  on  the  one  hand,  with  use  and,  on  the 
other,  with  truth,  beauty,  goodness  and  sanctity, 
and  which  has  maintained  that  you  cannot  both  serve 
God  and  Mammon,  is  sound. 

Though  we  were  to  admit  utility  as  the  immediate 
and  ultimate  aim,  we  must  then  satisfy  ourselves 
whether  in  fitting  means  to  ends  the  true  relationship 
exists  between  them,  and  this  implies  that  knowledge 
concerning  both,  and  that  skill  in  manipulating  and 
adapting  our  knowledge  of  both  these  elements  to 
one  another,  which  truth  and  science  give,  upon 
which  our  activity  ultimately  depends.  We  must 
further  satisfy  ourselves  that  such  activity  is  not 
revolting  to  our  taste,  to  the  sense  of  the  beauty  of 
life  and  the  art  of  living ;  that  it  is  not  morally  bad 
and  degrading  to  the  human  heart  and  mind  ;  and 
19 


274  PRAGMATICS 

that  it  is  not  degrading  to  the  community  and  society 
at  large  ;  and,  finally,  that  it  is  not  in  flagrant  con- 
tradiction to  our  ideal  conception  of  the  perfect  life 
and  the  perfect  spirit  which  leads  us  in  imagination 
and  aspiration  beyond  our  actual  life.  It  will  then 
be  found  that,  as  a  principle  of  life  and  mind,  it  leads 
us  nowhere,  or  only  round  and  round  in  the  proxi- 
mate circle  of  things  nearest  to  our  immediate  reach. 
So  far  as  it  is  a  primary  principle,  it  is  itself,  as  we 
have  seen,  based  upon  harmonistic  principles,  as,  in 
order  to  recognise  the  desirability  of  its  own  processes, 
it  is  again  based  upon  the  aristo tropic  imagination, 
which  leads  to  the  choice  of  the  best  ends  and  the 
best  means.  It  is  therefore  only  a  secondary  principle 
subordinated  to  the  moral,  intellectual,  and  aesthetic 
principle,  and  to  the  ultimate  ideals  thence  derived. 


CHAPTER    IV 

ETHICS  l 

ETHICS  is,  like  aesthetics,  a  department  of  knowledge 
which  is  concerned  with  "  things  as  they  ought  to 
be  "  and  not  merely  "  as  they  are."  It  is  practical 
and  not  theoretical ;  though,  on  the  basis  of  the  real, 
it  aims  at  approaching  the  ideal  and  of  converting 
man  and  human  society  as  they  are  into  what  they 
ought  to  be.  It  must  therefore  always  be  eminently 
practicable,  however  thorough  our  methods  of  in- 
vestigation may  be  in  studying  the  data  upon  which 
our  generalisations  rest  and  the  higher  standards 
which  we  wish  to  establish.  It  is  essentially  based 
upon  actual  life,  and  is  thus  not  merely  imaginative, 
as  aesthetics  essentially  is,  nor  yet  purely  contempla- 
tive and  emotional  in  dwelling  upon  the  supernatural 
ideal  world  as  religion  must  needs  be.  Ethics  deals 
with  those  principles  of  human  nature  and  conduct 
which  produce  the  most  perfect  man  and  lead  him 
to  act  in  conformity  with  the  perfect  life,  individual 
and  collective.  It  thus  predemands  the  idea  of  the 
perfect  human  being  and  his  full  development  in  a 
society  harmonising  with  such  perfection  ;  the  develop- 
ment of  all  man's  faculties  and  their  relation  to  his 
being  as  a  whole  ;  and  in  its  turn  producing  the 

1  Many,  if  not  most,  of  the  considerations  on  Ethics  here  given  have 
already  been  published  by  me  in  other  works  in  the  following  publica- 
tions :  Aristodemocracy,  pt.  ii,  ch.  i-v  ;  pt.  iii  and  pt.  iv  ;  app.  vi 
("  The  Esthetic  Element  in  the  Education  of  the  Individual  and  of  the 
Nation,"  reprinted  from  an  address  delivered  to  the  Parents'  National 
Education  Union  in  1910  in  The  Parents'  Review,  1910)  ;  Eugenics, 
Civics,  and  Ethics  ;  Truth  ;  and  other  writings. 

275 


276  ETHICS 

perfect  collective  association  in  the  social  com- 
munity or  State.  Its  spirit  and  method  are  thus 
eminently  harmoniotropic  and  aristotropic. 

We  shall  see,  when  we  come  to  study  Politics,  that 
there  are  some  philosophers  who  find  the  primary 
basis  for  ethics  in  politics.  They  consider  that  the 
perfect  human  being  must  be  defined  upon  the  basis 
of  the  individual's  relation  to  the  collective  body 
called  the  State,  whereas  we  hold  that  the  true  con- 
ception of  the  State  must  be  based  upon  the  clear 
understanding  of  the  perfect  individual  man,  as  well 
as  his  relation  to  his  fellow-men  and  their  various 
associations  in  wider  collective  bodies.  Man  un- 
doubtedly is  a  fwoz/  KOSTIKOV,  a  social  animal ;  but  his 
social  and  political  relations  do  not  cover  the  whole 
of  his  existence — they  are  but  a  part  of  the  mental 
unity  of  relationship  of  this  highly  organic  being.  It 
is  putting  the  cart  before  the  horse  to  derive  the 
definition  of  man's  total  need  and  destiny  from  the 
State,  which  is  one  outcome  and  consequence  of  his 
life  and  being. 

The  same  applies  to  the  position  of  ethics,  to 
metaphysics,  and  religion.  All  human  activity  and 
knowledge  and  all  departments  of  systematised 
knowledge  may  be  ultimately  expressed  in  meta- 
physical terms  and  in  religious  terms  ;  and  our 
ultimate  conceptions  within  each  department  may 
be  based  upon,  and  modified  by,  our  metaphysical  or 
religious  principles  and  ideals.  This  applies  to  all 
mental  and  spiritual  activities,  to  art,  to  pragmatics, 
to  politics,  as  well  as  to  science.  But  it  does  not  help 
us  in  the  theory  and  methodical  elaboration  of  any 
one  of  these  departments  of  knowledge  to  intrude  the 
metaphysical  or  religious  attitude  of  mind  and 
methods  of  thought.  They  can  lead  to  no  satis- 
factory scientific  results  nor  to  the  attainment  of 
truth.  This  is  especially  the  case  with  regard  to 


THE  BEST  MAN  AND  THE  BEST  LIFE      277 

ethics,  which  is  concerned  with  the  actual  conduct  of 
life  and  must  be  based  upon  the  sober  and  unbiased 
recognition  of  this  life  in  order  to  establish  rules  of 
conduct  to  guide  us  in  the  varying  complexity  of  our 
daily  existence,  and  which  demands  the  most  unpre- 
judiced, sober  and  dispassionate  apprehension  of  the 
ever-changing  conditions  of  life. 

Religion,1  on  the  other  hand,  as  we  shall  see,  is 
essentially  connected  with  that  higher  emotional  con- 
dition which  contemplates  infinity,  the  ideals  of  the 
universe  and  of  supernatural  life.  The  attitude  of 
mind  which  favours  religious  contemplation  and 
exaltation  is  not  favourable  to  the  clear  apprehension 
of  daily  conduct  and  of  the  practical  principles  which 
ought  to  regulate  our  standards. 

On  the  other  hand,  ethics  is  closely  analogous  to 
aesthetics  in  the  immediateness  in  which  they  are  both 
based  upon  the  harmonistic  and  aristotropic  principle 
and  its  realisation  in  life  ;  and  the  Greeks  were  thus 
led  by  a  correct  instinct  when  they  insisted  upon 
the  intimate  congenital  relationship  to  be  found  in 
the  aesthetic  element  inherent  in  our  conception  of  the 
Good,  and  in  the  relation  between  the  Good  and 
the  Beautiful ;  so  that  they  fused  the  two  words 
into  one  as  tcaXo/ccvyaOia.  The  tca\OKaya06<i  was  the 
perfect  man  in  whom  (most  significantly  for  the 
11  Harmonist  ")  the  superlative  form  is  on  /eaX7u<rToi/ 
while  the  superlative  of  dyaBos  becomes  TO 
apco-rov — the  Best.  This  corresponds  to  the  natural 
and  logical  step  from  the  harmoniotropic  to 
the  aristotropic  which  we  have  already  recognised. 
The  ethical  ideal  rests  on  the  harmony  of  man's 
nature  as  a  perfect  organism — intellectual,  moral, 
political,  and  aesthetic.  It  is  the  first  as  well  as  the 
supreme  task  of  ethics  to  define  and  clearly  to 
establish  the  standard  of  the  perfect  man  towards 

1  Aristodemocracy,  pt.  iii,  ch.  i,  p.  201  seq. 


278  ETHICS 

which  we  must  strive,  and  by  which  we  ourselves  and 
our  actions  are  judged.  Man's  being  as  a  whole  and 
every  one  of  his  actions  are  moral  in  the  degree  in 
which  he  approximates  to  the  ideal  totality  of  his 
actions  and  of  each  separate  activity.  Our  conscious 
comparison  of  particular  actions  with  the  ideal  type 
towards  which  this  ought  to  tend  constitutes  what 
we  call  Conscience,  by  means  of  which  we  test  our- 
selves and  our  actions.  The  full  harmony  and 
conformity  between  our  actions  and  our  conscience 
constitute  the  Tightness  of  our  actions,  as  discord 
constitutes  wrongness.  Out  of  the  understanding  of 
this  perfect  relationship  man  has  defined  his  Duties. 
Here  again  we  must  realise  that  such  harmony  and 
symmetry  are  not  static,  because  they  are  concerned, 
not  with  unchanging  correlated  elements  or  with 
general  and  abstract  physical  and  mathematical  prin- 
ciples, but  with  life — moreover,  mental  and  spiritual 
as  well  as  organic  life.  Ethics  is  thus  eminently 
practical,  and  is  concerned  with  the  actual  life  of  each 
individual,  including  his  innumerable  relationships  to 
other  human  beings  and  the  world  about  him.  With 
these,  which  are  not  static,  but  moving,  and  are  sub- 
ject to  change  and  development,  the  symmetry 
becomes  organic,  and  the  standards  as  regards  the 
perfect  man  and  his  actions  are  subject  to  evolution. 
This  evolution,  however,  is  not  fatalistic  in  character, 
beyond  the  reach  of  intelligence  and  imagination, 
but  is  directly  subject  to  the  conscious  aims  con- 
ceived by  man  to  realise  harmony  within  and  without. 
It  is  not  purely  casual,  but  teleological.  The  move- 
ment is  not  directed  by  unknown  forces,  but  by  an 
onward  and  upward  course  in  the  direction  of  the  end 
and  aim  of  the  most  perfect  human  being  acting  rightly 
and  within  a  society  which  facilitates  and  promotes 
the  existence  of  such  beings  and  favours  their  free 
activity  conducive  to  such  ultimate  harmony.  With 


EVOLUTION  IN  ETHICAL  PROGRESS      279 

the  variations  of  life  and  its  moral  movements  in  the 
direction  of  progress,  man's  conception  of  ethical 
harmony  varies  in  the  course  of  time  and  in  the 
recognisable  periods  within  human  history. 

In  the  earliest  periods  of  civilised  communities  the 
general  laws  of  conduct  have  thus  been  established 
by  lawgivers  in  codes  of  moral  duties.1  Besides  the 
great  teachers  of  the  East  and  of  Greece,  the  two 
figures  which  stand  out  most  prominently,  especially 
in  the  establishment  and  development  of  Western 
European  morals,  are  Moses  and  Christ.'  The  Ten 
Commandments  mark  a  great  epoch  in  the  moral 
evolution  of  man  and  of  civilisation  in  general,  and 
have  to  a  most  remarkable  degree  maintained  their 
fundamental  validity  down  to  our  own  days.  There 
can  be  no  doubt  that  they  are  supplemented  and 
advanced  by  the  teachings  of  Christ,  notably  in 
the  Sermon  on  the  Mount,  and  in  many  other 
ethical  dicta.  But  in  the  various  schools  of 
philosophy,  from  ancient  Greece  and  Rome  onwards, 
through  the  Middle  Ages,  down  to  modern  times,  the 
best  intellects  and  thinkers  of  noble  character  have 
exerted  themselves  to  define  the  essential  nature  of 
morality,  to  establish  ethical  standards,  and  to  lay 
down  codes  of  moral  conduct.  Man's  relation  to 
himself,  to  the  world  about  him,  to  his  fellow-men 
and  to  God,  his  duties  and  his  conception  of  the 
ideal  world,  have  been  studied  and  have  led  to  a 
clear  apprehension  of  those  relationships  to  guide 
his  conduct  on  every  side  in  accordance  with  ethical 
laws. 

1  I  do  not  propose  to  enter  here  into,  or  to  dwell  upon,  the  distinction 
between  law  and  morality.  Law  is  but  one  aspect  of  the  purely  prac- 
tical development  of  the  machinery  arising  out  of  ethical  needs.  How- 
ever much  in  legal  practice  and  in  the  conduct  of  civics  it  may  be 
necessary  to  distinguish  between  law  and  morality,  this  distinction 
does  not  enter  into  the  domain  of  the  problems  we  are  here  considering. 

*  See  Aristodemocracy,  pt.  iii,  ch.  ii,  p.  208  seq. ;   ch.  iii,  p.  224  seq. 


280  ETHICS 

In  spite  of  the  lasting  and  constraining  validity  of 
many  of  the  ethical  principles  which  have  thus  been 
established  in  the  past,  it  cannot  be  denied  that,  with 
the  evolutionary  change  in  the  process  of  human 
history,  some  of  these  old  principles  no  longer  apply 
to  the  more  complex  conditions  of  life  ;  while 
the  growth  and  complexity  of  social  and  moral 
relationships  non-existent  before,  demand  corre- 
sponding enlargement  and  change  in  standards  of 
morality.  Moreover,  the  recognition  of  the  fact  that 
many  ethical  tenets  are  not  absolute,  but  relative, 
and  that  what  was  moral  or  immoral  in  one  age  or 
one  locality  and  for  human  beings  living  under 
various  conditions  is  not  so  for  a  subsequent  age  and 
locality  under  different  conditions,  has  either  led 
the  ethical  student  and  his  followers  to  complete 
scepticism  and  the  negation  of  the  validity  of  moral 
tenets  or  to  a  rigid  dogmatism  which,  whether  it  be 
accepted  by  human  intelligence  or  not,  cannot  cover 
the  multiform  needs  of  growing  social  life.  What, 
therefore,  is  needed,  above  all — and  in  no  time  more 
than  the  present — is  the  codification  of  the  actual 
laws  of  ethical  conduct,  fully  developed  in  each 
period,  and  comprising  inherent  potential  advance- 
ment, all  leading  to  progressive  life  in  the  future  and 
progressive  standards  of  morals.  As  I  have  already 
expressed  it  elsewhere,1  I  may  be  allowed  to  repeat 
it  here  : 

"  What  modern  man  and  modern  society  require 
above  all  things  is  a  clear  and  distinct  codification  of 
the  moral  consciousness  of  civilised  man,  not  merely 
in  a  theoretical  disquisition  in  vague  and  general 
terms,  which  evade  immediate  application  to  the 
more  complex  or  subtle  needs  of  our  daily  life  ;  but 
one  which,  arising  out  of  the  clear  and  unbiased  study 

1  Aristodemocracy,  pt.  iii,  ch.  i,  pp.  200  seqq. 


RELIGION  AND  ETHICS  281 

of  the  actual  problems  of  life,  is  fitted  to  meet  every 
definite  difficulty,  and  to  direct  all  moral  effort  towards 
one  great  and  universally  accepted  end.  It  is  the 
absence  of  such  an  adequate  ethical  code,  truly  ex- 
pressive of  the  best  in  us  and  accepted  by  all,  and  the 
means  of  bringing  such  a  code  to  the  knowledge  of 
men,  penetrating  our  educative  system  in  its  most 
elementary  form  as  it  applies  even  to  the  youngest 
children  and  is  continuously  impressed  upon  all 
people  in  every  age  of  their  life — it  is  the  absence  of 
such  an  effective  system  of  moral  education  which 
lies  at  the  root  of  all  that  is  bad  and  irrational,  not 
only  in  individual  life  but  in  national  life,  and  that 
has  made  this  great  war — at  once  barbarous,  pedanti- 
cally cruel,  and  unspeakably  stupid — possible  in 
modern  times. 

'  The  reason  why  such  an  adequate  expression  of 
moral  consciousness  has  not  existed  among  us,  in 
spite  of  the  eminently  practical  and  urgent  need,  is 
that  the  constitution  and  teaching  of  ethics  have 
been  relegated  to  the  sphere  of  theoretical  study  of 
principles,  historical  or  speculative,  and  have  not 
directly  been  concerned  with  establishing  a  prac- 
tical guide  to  conduct.  No  real  attempt  has  been 
made  to  draw  up  a  code  of  ethics  to  meet  the  actual 
problems  of  daily  life.  Or,  when  thus  considered 
in  its  immediate  and  practical  bearings,  this 
task  has  been  relegated  to  the  churches  and  the 
priests. 

"  It  cannot  be  too  emphatically  stated  that,  though 
never  divorced  from  each  other,  religion  and  ethics 
envisage  quite  different  spheres,  and  that  when  in 
their  practice  and  activity  they  are  indiscriminately 
mixed  up  with  one  another,  this  fusion  does  not  tend 
to  the  good  of  either.  The  confusion  of  the  primary 
attitude  of  mind  which  they  imply  and  the  definite 
spheres  of  activity  which  they  are  meant  to  con- 
trol results  in  the  lowering  or  weakening  of  the 
spirit  and  the  practice  of  each.  Ethics  alone  can 
never  replace  religion.  Religion  alone,  when  wholly 
dominating  the  heart  and  mind  of  man,  cannot  pre- 
pare him  to  solve  the  problems  of  ethics  with  a  clear 


282  ETHICS 

and  unbiased  mind,  intent  upon  the  weighing  of 
evidence  and  the  searching  inquiry  into  the  practical 
needs  of  society  and  of  individual  life.  The  at  once 
delicate  and  exalted  moods  of  religious  feeling  and  of 
religious  thought — not  to  mention  the  complex  and 
remote  dogmas  of  each  religion — are,  to  say  the  least, 
not  favourable  to  the  sober,  dispassionate,  and 
searching  analysis  of  motives,  of  actions,  and  their 
results  in  the  daily  life  of  man,  or  the  relations 
between  communities  and  States.1  Moreover,  this 
strictly  logical,  unemotional,  and  sober  analysis,  and 
its  prospective  application  to  the  regulation  of  material 
prosperity  as  well  as  spiritual  health,  is  of  itself 
destructive  of  the  very  essence  of  that  emotional 
exaltation  and  that  touch  of  mysticism  which  forms 
an  essential  element  of  the  religious  mood.  Its 
intrusion  into  the  domain  of  pure  religion  is  of  itself 
lowering  to  such  exaltation  and  destructive  of  its 
most  delicate  and,  at  the  same  time,  most  powerful 
spiritual  force. 

11  Furthermore,  it  has  undeniably  been  an  element 
in  all  religions  of  the  past  that  they  should  be  strongly 
conservative,  and,  at  all  events,  fervently  reverential 
towards  the  past  teachings  of  their  founders  and 

1  An  almost  caricatured  illustration  of  the  inadequacy  of  sectarian 
morality  is  furnished  by  the  sermons  of  several  German  divines  of  high 
repute,  representing  the  Lutheran  Church,  preached  since  the  above 
was  written,  and  which  I  here  quote  from  the  Spectator  of  January  26, 
1916.  They  were  translated  by  the  Rev.  W.  Burgess.  They  remind 
us  forcibly  of  the  standards  of  morality  based  upon  the  Christian  religion 
as  adopted  by  the  Inquisition.  There  is  hardly  a  single  religious  sect 
— perhaps  with  the  exception  of  the  Society  of  Friends — which  in  its 
past  history  does  not  supply  some  grotesquely  immoral  results  of 
religious  fervour. 

Pastor  Froebel,  preaching  in  the  well-known  Lutheran  Church  at 
Leipzig,  spoke  of  German  guns  as  beating  down  the  children  of  Satan 
and  of  German  submarines  as  "  instruments  to  execute  the  divine 
vengeance."  The  mission  of  the  submarines,  he  explained,  was  to 
drown  thousands  of  the  non-elect. 

Professor  Reinhold  Suberg,  in  a  sermon  preached  in  the  cathedral  at 
Berlin,  said  that  Germans,  in  killing  their  enemies,  burning  their  houses, 
and  invading  their  territories,  performed  a  "  work  of  charity."  Divine 
love  was  everywhere  in  the  world,  but  men  had  to  suffer  for  their  salva- 
tion. Germany  "  loved  other  nations,"  and  when  she  punished  them 
it  was  for  their  good. 

Pastor  Fritz  Philippi,  preaching  in  Berlin,  said  that  as  God  allowed 
His  Son  to  be  crucified  that  the  scheme  of  redemption  might  be 
accomplished,  so  Germany  was  destined  to  "  crucify  humanity  "  in 


DANGERS  OF  THE  RELIGIOUS  MOOD      283 

tenacious  of  this  teaching  converted  into  dogma  in 
bygone  ages.  In  so  far  they  are  not  fully  adapted 
to  consider,  with  clear  and  unbiased  receptiveness, 
the  actual  problems  of  the  present,  which  are  generally 
strongly  contrasted  to  the  life  of  the  past  ;  while 
much  of  this  lucidity  will  be  lost  when  an  attempt 
is  made  to  translate  the  complex  life  of  to-day  into 
the  simpler  conditions  of  the  past.  Moreover,  in 
religion  all  is  seen  through  a  veil  of  antique  mysticism. 
Nor,  still  less,  can  such  a  conservative  attitude  of 
mind  be  favourable  to  the  essential  spirit  of  change, 
to  the  adaptation  to  new  conditions  implied  in  the 
conscious  evolution  of  man  towards  the  higher  con- 
ditions of  a  progressive  society,  and  to  the  continuous 
flow  implied  in  the  very  principle  of  life  which, 
in  the  moral  and  practical  spheres,  are  the  organic 
element  of  a  normal,  rational,  and  healthy  society. 
No  doubt  we  may  rightly  hold  that,  from  one  point 
of  view,  religion  enters  into  every  aspect  of  man's 
existence,  and  that  it  may  form  the  ultimate  founda- 
tion of  our  whole  moral  and  intellectual  activity. 
But  it  does  not  and  cannot  deal  directly  with  the 
practical  world,  and  cannot  intrude  itself  into  our 
consciousness  when  we  are  bound  to  concentrate 

order  that  salvation  might  be  achieved.  The  human  race  could  be 
saved  in  no  other  way.  "  It  is  really  because  we  are  pure  that  we  have 
been  chosen  by  the  Almighty  as  His  instruments  to  punish  the  envious, 
to  chastise  the  wicked,  and  to  slay  with  the  sword  the  sinful  nations. 
The  divine  mission  of  Germany,  O  brethren,  is  to  crucify  humanity. 
The  duty  of  German  soldiers,  therefore,  is  to  strike  without  mercy. 
They  must  kill,  burn,  and  destroy,  and  any  half-measures  would  be 
wicked.  Let  it  then  be  a  war  without  pity.  The  immoral  and  the 
friends  and  allies  of  Satan  must  be  destroyed,  as  an  evil  plant  is  up- 
rooted. Satan  himself,  who  has  come  into  the  world  in  the  form  of  a 
Great  Power  [England],  must  be  crushed.  .  .  .  The  kingdom  of  right- 
eousness will  be  established  on  earth,  and  the  German  Empire,  which 
will  have  created  it,  will  remain  its  protector." 

A  nation  dependent  for  its  moral  guidance  upon  Nietzsche  on  the 
one  side  and  "  pastors  "  on  the  other  must  drift  into  amorality. 

It  may  be  said  that  these  are  perversions  of  religious  morality  due 
to  the  moral  obliquity  of  those  professing  such  views.  But  the  fact 
remains  that,  as  in  the  Inquisition  and  other  sectarian  persecutions  of 
the  past,  the  crime  is  committed  by  official  representatives  of  the 
Churches,  invoking  the  very  authority  of  their  religious  tenets.  If 
even  such  trained  leaders  can  so  misinterpret  the  moral  laws  of  their 
creeds,  it  does  not  speak  well  for  the  constraining,  practical  efficacious- 
ness of  such  moral  codes  and  the  logical  practical  foundations  on  which 
they  rest. 


284  ETHICS 

all  our  mental  and  even  physical  energies  upon  the 
consummation  of  some  definite  task  in  the  ever- 
varying  changes  of  our  actual  life.  It  is  concerned 
with  man's  relation  to  his  highest  ultimate  ideals, 
and  is  based  upon  his  higher  emotional,  and  not  his 
practical  and  strictly  logical,  consciousness.  It  im- 
plies no  adaptation  to  surrounding  and  varying 
conditions,  no  compromise  within  the  struggle  of 
contending  claims.  In  his  truly  religious  moods,  in 
his  communion  with  the  supernatural,  with  his 
ultimate  ideals,  there  is  no  room  for  compromise, 
practical  opportunism,  and  the  adaptation  to  the 
ever-changing  conditions  of  actual  life. 

"  Hence,  the  priest  is  not  directly  fitted  to  be  the 
transmitter  of  this  moral  code  of  a  healthy  society 
in  directing  the  young  and  in  advising  adults  as  a 
minister  of  a  definite  religious  creed.  His  ethical 
teaching  must  always  be  directly  subordinated  to 
the  dogmatic  creed  which  he  professes  ;  and  his 
habit  of  mind,  as  well  as  his  conscious  purpose,  must 
in  so  far  unfit  him  for  the  problem  of  establishing 
a  living  code  of  practical  ethics  and  of  impressing  it 
clearly  as  a  teacher  upon  young  and  old. 

"  Moreover,  in  the  present  conditions  of  the  modern 
world,  we  are  brought  face  to  face  with  a  definite 
fact  which,  perhaps  more  than  anything  else,  has  stood 
in  the  way  of  effective  and  normal  advancement  of 
moral  teaching  among  us.  For  in  every  community 
we  have  not  only  one  creed  but  a  number  of  creeds  ; 
and,  whatever  their  close  relationship  to  one  another 
may  in  many  instances  be  as  regards  fundamental 
religious  tenets,  they  differ  in  organisation  and 
administration  and  in  the  personality  of  their 
ministrants  to  such  a  degree,  that  such  difference  not 
infrequently  involves  rivalry  and  antagonism.  The 
most  practical  result  in  our  national  life  is  clearly 
brought  before  us  in  the  promulgation  of  the  various 
Education  Acts,  which  in  great  part  were  merely 
concerned  with  the  adjustment  of  the  claims  of  the 
varied  sects  among  us.  They  have  thus  led  to  the 
exclusion  of  direct  religious  teaching  and  the  retention 
of  mere  Scripture  reading  as  the  only  directly  spiritual 


ETHICAL  TEACHING  IN  SCHOOLS        285 

and  moral  element  in  public  instruction,  or  they  have 
led,  and  may  lead,  to  the  division  of  spheres  of  activity 
of  each  one  of  these  sects  and  their  clerical  represen- 
tatives of  differing  forms  of  religious  and  moral 
instruction  among  separate  groups  of  children.  That 
the  impression  upon  the  youthful  mind,  in  so  glaring 
and  manifest  a  form,  of  fundamental  differences  in 
religious  and  moral  principles  between  them  (perhaps 
suggesting  and  establishing  false  standards  of  social 
distinction  as  well),  cannot  be  considered  in  itself 
a  moral  gain  to  the  establishment  of  a  healthy  social 
instinct  in  the  hearts  of  the  individuals  or  the  develop- 
ment of  a  healthy  and  harmonious  national  and 
social  life  for  the  community  at  large,  can  hardly  be 
denied.  At  all  events,  such  a  state  of  affairs  does  not 
bring  us  nearer  to  the  formulation  of  a  common  ethical 
code,  expressive  of  the  highest  national  life  on  the 
ethical  side  within  each  age,  and  the  promise  of  a 
growing  development  for  the  future.  Meanwhile, 
whatever  may  exist  among  us  of  ethical  principles 
and  moral  practices  to  which  we  all  subscribe,  is 
eliminated  from  the  activity  of  our  educational 
institutions  ;  and  the  younger  generation  grows  up 
without  any  instruction  in  common  morality  and 
without  any  clear  knowledge  of  its  definite  principles. 
"  On  the  other  hand,  I  should  not  like  it  to  be 
thought  that  I  ignore,  or  am  unmindful  of,  the  good 
work  which  the  priests  of  all  denominations  have 
done  on  the  moral  side  of  the  past  and  are  doing  in 
the  present.  Whether  priests  of  the  Church  of  England 
or  of  the  Church  of  Rome,  or  ministers  of  the  numerous 
Christian  sects,  or  rabbis,  they  have  in  great  numbers 
devoted  themselves  to  the  betterment  of  their  fellow- 
men,  they  have  held  aloft  the  torch  of  idealism,  and 
many  of  them  stand  out  as  the  noblest  types  of  a  life 
of  self-abnegation  devoted  to  progress  towards  a 
lofty  ideal  with  complete  self-effacement.  The  posi- 
tive good  which  they  have  done  and  are  doing  is 
undeniable.  The  picture  of  an  English  village  with- 
out its  church,  not  only  as  a  symbol  of  higher  spiritual 
aspirations,  but  as  an  active  means  of  providing  for 
the  dull  and  often  purely  material  daily  life  of  the 


286  ETHICS 

inhabitants  a  gleam  of  elevating  life  and  beauty,  must 
make  him  hesitate  who  ruthlessly  would  destroy  it  by 
missiles  of  cold  thought,  as  those  of  German  steel  have 
actually  destroyed  the  churches  in  Belgium  and 
France,  and  shudder  at  the  devastation  he  might 
cause.  But  the  firm  conviction  that  what  he  has  to 
offer  is  not  sheer  and  wanton  destruction,  but  that 
the  growth  and  spread  of  true  morality  will  clear 
the  way  for  a  brighter,  higher,  and  nobler  life,  ending 
in  the  expansion  and  advancement  of  pure  and  un- 
contaminated  religion,  removes  all  doubt  and  fear  and 
strengthens  our  conviction  in  the  Tightness  of  the  cause, 
for  which  we  also  are  prepared  to  lay  down  our  lives. 
1  We  cannot  admit  that  a  morality,  however 
adequate  and  high  it  may  have  been  for  the  Jews 
living  many  centuries  ago,  can  be  adapted  and  fitted 
to  the  requirements  of  modern  society  without  great 
confusion  and  loss  in  this  process  of  adaptation.  This 
is  especially  the  case  when,  as  a  chief  ground  for  its 
unqualified  acceptance,  religious  dogma  steps  in  and 
maintains  that  it  is  of  direct  divine  origin.  Even 
when  thus  accepted,  and  effective  as  a  guide  to 
conduct  by  many,  many  remain  who  do  not  honestly 
accept  the  evidence  of  this  direct  divine  origin.  The 
effect  upon  these  latter  is  one  of  clear  opposition  to 
the  binding  power  of  such  moral  laws,  and  may  end 
in  an  opposition  to  all  moral  laws. 

1  "  We  have  seen — and,  because  of  the  vital  im- 
portance to  the  main  purpose  of  this  book,  I  have 
repeated  the  statement  more  than  once — the  crying 
need  for  what  I  have  called  the  codification  of  con- 
temporary morals,  or  at  least  the  clear  and  intelligible 
(intelligible  even  to  the  average  man)  expression  of 
the  moral  consciousness  of  each  age  and  each  country. 
The  great  fault  in  this  respect  has  hitherto  been  that 
the  treatment  of  ethical  subjects  in  the  hands  of  the 
philosopher-specialist  in  ethics  has  almost  exclusively 
been  concerned  with  the  discussion  of  the  main  or 
abstract  principles  and  foundations  of  ethics,  the 
mere  prolegomena  to  ethical  teaching  which  should 

1  O.c.t  pp.  256  seq. 


THE  CODIFICATION  OF  MORALS         287 

be  of  direct  practical  use  as  a  guide  to  conduct. 
Such  practical  and  efficient  guidance  to  conduct  and 
teaching  of  morality  has  generally  been  by  means  of 
ephemeral  or  casual  moral  injunction  on  the  part  of 
the  priests  of  every  denomination.  It  thus  not  only 
received  a  sectarian  or  dogmatic  bias — often  causing 
the  whole  moral  structure  to  collapse  when  the 
foundations  of  belief  in  these  dogmas  were  no  longer 
valid — or,  in  any  case,  introducing  the  element  of 
mysticism  and  the  need  for  translation  into  the  remote 
language  of  bygone  ages,  races,  or  conditions  of  life, 
and  thus  making  more  difficult  the  arduous  task  of 
applying  clear  principles  of  action  to  the  complicated 
exigencies  of  actual  and  present  life,  on  the  clear 
understanding  of  which  such  principles  ought  to  be 
based. 

"  Furthermore,  the  cognisance  which  the  State 
has  hitherto  taken  of  this  paramount  factor  in  the  life 
of  the  people,  and  the  direct  action  which  the  State 
has  taken,  have  generally  been  confined  to  that  aspect 
of  '  Social  Legislation  '  chiefly  or  exclusively  con- 
cerned in  counteracting  extreme  poverty  and  social 
inefficiency  and  the  evil  results  arising  out  of  these, 
again,  chiefly  from  a  purely  economical  point  of  view. 
The  State  has  not  directly  considered  the  positive 
moral  and  social  betterment  of  the  conditions  of  life 
and  living  of  the  people  themselves,  nor  directly  aimed 
at  the  highest  conceivable  goal  for  social  improvement. 

1  The  most  crying  need  before  us,  therefore,  is  the 
clear  recognition  of  such  an  expression  of  the  moral 
consciousness  of  the  age,  and,without  any  interference 
with  the  established  religious  creeds  and  their  practices 
as  the  expression  of  religious  life,  to  provide  for,  first, 
such  an  expression  of  our  moral  requirements,  and, 
secondly,  for  the  effective  dissemination  of  contem- 
porary ethics  throughout  all  layers  of  human  society. 

"  The  action  of  the  State  in  this  respect  must  be 
directly  educational,  and  this  educational  function 
must  be  concerned,  first,  with  the  young  and  their  lives, 
and,  secondly,  with  the  adult  population  and  its  life. 

"  However  limited  the  time  set  aside  in  schools 
for  the  teaching  of  ethics  may  be,  certain  hours  should 


288  ETHICS 

thus  be  devoted  to  the  teaching  of  morals.  The  text- 
book of  such  elementary  ethics  should,  above  all, 
be  clear  and  concise,  and  must  contain  those  moral 
injunctions  which  would  be  universally  accepted 
by  all  right-thinking  people  within  the  nation  and 
admitted  by  every  religious  sect  or  creed.  The 
teachers  themselves  should  be  provided  with  ex- 
planatory additions  to  the  textbooks,  containing  or 
suggesting  instances  from  actual  life  which  should 
convincingly  illustrate  each  moral  injunction  from 
the  short  textbook  in  the  hands  of  the  pupils.  Of 
course,  it  will  be  left  to  the  well-qualified  teacher 
to  increase  and  to  enlarge  upon  such  definite  and  illu- 
minating examples.  Even  the  question  of  moral 
casuistry — the  conflict  or  clashing  of  the  various 
duties — is  to  be  definitely  treated." 

The  final  determination  of  the  problem  of  moral 
casuistry  depends  upon  a  purely  harmonistic  faculty, 
the  sense  of  relative  values,  of  proportion,  of  taste. 
For,  as  we  hold  that  the  validity  of  every  fully 
established  duty  remains  in  itself,  but  that,  when  one 
or  more  duties  clash,  one  must  prevail  over  the  others, 
the  point  of  decisive  importance  then  becomes  the 
recognition  of  the  duty  of  highest  value,  of  preference, 
of  aristotropic  dominance.  To  speak  the  truth  always 
remains  a  duty,  as  also  to  preserve  the  life  and  health 
of  a  fellow-being.  When  speaking  the  truth  en- 
dangers the  life  or  health  of  a  human  being  it  remains 
with  the  sense  of  proportion  on  the  part  of  the  actor 
to  determine  the  relative  value  of  these  two  duties. 
This  is  ultimately  an  appeal  to  the  faculty  correspond- 
ing to  proportion,  the  aristotropic  and  harmonistic 
instinct.  A  further  moral  safeguard  against  wrongly 
contravening  one  duty  because  of  the  superior  claims 
of  another  is  furnished  by  the  test  that,  when  the 
special  cause  which  justified  such  a  contravention 
is  removed,  we  are  prepared  to  confess  our  infraction.1 

1  Cf.  Aristodemocracy,  p.  258. 


CLASSIFICATION   OF   DUTIES  289 

The  classification  of  the  various  subdivisions  of 
duties  into  such  an  ethical  code  for  each  period,  in 
order  to  cover  the  whole  sphere  of  moral  actions  and 
to  concentrate  inquiry  and  exposition  with  the  hope 
of  responding  to  every  aspect  of  life,  forcibly  presents 
to  us  the  following  categories.  It  will  be  seen  that 
in  the  order  in  which  they  are  here  given  they  follow 
the  natural  course  of  life  from  infancy  upwards  by 
those  spheres  which,  at  all  events  from  physical 
proximity,  first  present  themselves  to  the  growing 
human  being,  though  it  may  be  held  that  logically 
the  duty  to  self  and  the  duty  to  God  are  the  most 
proximate  duties  of  man  ;  but  it  will  be  found  that  in 
actual  life  the  realisation  of  such  duties  is  the  product 
of  a  more  developed  and  later  mental  process.  From 
the  fourth  subdivision  onward  it  will  be  seen  that  the 
progression  from  the  concrete  to  the  abstract  advances, 
and  that,  however  great  the  value  and  importance  of 
these  later  duties  are  in  the  progression  of  morals, 
their  apprehension  belongs  to  a  later  phase  of  mental 
development.  We  can  thus  distinguish  seven  sub- 
divisions, each  of  which  of  course  is  not  isolated,  but 
interacts  with  all  the  others  : 

1 .  Duty  to  the  family  ; 

2.  Duty  to   the  immediate  community  in  which 

we  live,  and  social  duties  ; 

3.  Duty  to  the  State  ; 

4.  Duty  to  humanity  ; 

5.  Duty  to  self  ; 

6.  Duty  to  things  and  actions  as  such  ;  and 

7.  Duty  to  God. 


DUTY  TO  THE  FAMILY 

As  the  infant  is  born,  grows  up  and  is  confined  in 
its  life  for  a  considerable  period  within  the  family, 
20 


290  ETHICS 

so  from  the  earliest  times  onward  the  duties  pre- 
scribed by  the  family  relation  have  been  duly 
recognised.  It  is  my  firm  conviction  that,  whatever 
changes  have  taken  place  and  will  take  place  in  the 
future  in  the  evolution  of  human  society  and  in 
the  corporate  institutions  which  it  has  evolved,  the 
family  will  remain  as  an  indestructible  unit,  owing  to 
the  essential  nature  of  human  beings,  their  very 
origin  and  their  growth.  The  physical  propinquity 
of  the  members  of  the  family  and  the  constancy  and 
intimacy  of  their  relations  to  one  another  in  life 
develop,  and  of  necessity  demand,  the  intelligent  and 
moral  regulation  of  such  continuous  and  intensive 
intercourse.  These  very  conditions,  moreover,  from 
their  constraining  imminence  and  constant  urgency, 
form  the  best  training  for  the  development  of  those 
social  faculties  of  altruism,  self-control  and  affection 
which  no  looser  and  less  constraining  corporate  in- 
stitutions of  society  can  furnish.  But  there  can  be  no 
doubt  that  in  the  evolution  of  man  from  the  earliest 
stages  upwards  the  whole  of  life,  including  family 
life  and  the  relationships  which  follow  these  higher 
social  developments,  have  multiplied  as  they  have 
modified  to  a  considerable  degree  the  extent  and  the 
nature  of  these  duties.  Whereas,  for  instance,  in 
the  earliest  stages  of  human  existence  there  was 
an  almost  exclusive  concentration  upon  the  duties 
of  the  child  to  its  parents,  the  higher  developments 
have  also  established,  and  are  likely  to  establish  still 
more  in  the  future,  the  duties  of  the  parents  to  the 
children  in  every  successive  period  of  their  ages. 
The  whole  ethical  relation  of  the  family  and  the 
individuals  which  compose  it  is  a  subject  which 
requires  careful  and  fuller  investigation  in  a  spirit, 
together  with  the  application  of  methods,  with  which 
we  shall  deal  in  a  later  part  of  this  chapter. 


ASCENDING   SCALE   OF   DUTIES          291 

DUTY  TO  THE  IMMEDIATE  COMMUNITY  IN  WHICH  WE 
LIVE,  AND  SOCIAL  DUTIES 

Our  duties  do  not  end  with  the  family.  They 
proceed  by  natural  stages  from  the  narrower  to  the 
wider  in  a  progression  in  which  the  wider  implies 
and  includes  the  narrower.1 

"  Each  narrower  group  of  duties  must  fit  in  with 
and  advance  the  wider  sphere  of  duties.  Fortunately, 
there  is  no  inherent  necessity  why  they  need  clash. 
For  the  best  member  of  a  family  ought  also  naturally 
to  be  the  best  member  of  a  wider  society.  On  the 
other  hand,  owing  to  the  limitations  of  human  nature, 
the  absorbing  dominance  of  single  passions  and 
instincts,  and  the  centripetal  or  selfish  instinct  which 
congests  the  sympathies,  each  narrower  sphere  of 
duties  ought  to  be  supplemented  and  rectified  by  the 
wider  and  higher  ethical  outlook  towards  which  it 
ought  harmoniously  to  tend.  '  Charity  begins  at 
home,'  but  ought  not  '  to  stay  at  home,'  is  eminently 
and  deeply  true.  Moreover,  it  can  be  proved  (and 
I  am  sure  I  shall  be  borne  out  by  any  experienced 
observer  of  life)  that  the  narrower  and  more  exclusive 
are  our  sympathies  the  less  efficient  are  they  even 
when  applied  to  the  narrower  sphere.'  The  absolute 
and  moral  egoist  does  not  love  even  himself  truly 
and  wisely.  And  those  members  of  a  family  in  whom 
the  family  feeling  is  hypertrophied  to  an  abnormal 
degree,  so  that  it  is  blunted  with  regard  to  the  wider 
life  beyond  and  may  even  produce  an  antagonistic 
attitude  towards  it,  are  most  likely  to  be,  within  this 
family  group,  intensely  selfish,  whenever  there  arises 
a  clashing  of  interest  and  passions  between  themselves 
and  other  members  of  their  family.  To  them  applies 
what  in  an  earlier  portion  of  this  book  has  been  said 
concerning  the  Chauvinist. 

"  In  the  progression  of  duties  from  the  narrower 
to  the  wider  sphere  we  proceed  from  the  family  to 

1  Aristodemocracy,  pp.  271-5,  278-83,  290-2  ;  Patriotism,  etc.,  ch.  vi, 
p.  101  seq. 
*  See  The  Jewish  Question,  etc.,  p.  94. 


292  ETHICS 

the  immediate  community  in  which  we  live.  I  in  no 
way  wish  here  to  maintain  that  the  social  classifica- 
tions now  attaching  to  birth,  wealth,  or  occupation 
are  to  be  fixed  and  stereotyped  in  class  distinctions 
without  any  appeal  to  reason  and  justice,  as  little  as 
I  accept  the  extreme  ideals  of  absolute  socialism, 
which  reduce  all  life  and  ambitions  to  the  same  level. 
But,  considering  our  life  as  it  actually  is,  we  must 
begin  our  general  social  duties  by  performing  those 
several  functions  which  physically  and  tangibly 
lie  before  us  according  to  the  position  in  which  we 
are  placed,  with  a  view  to  the  material,  moral,  and 
social  advancement  of  such  a  community.  However 
remote  the  central  occupations  of  our  life  may  be 
from  the  life  of  the  place  in  which  we  actually  live, 
we  must  not,  and  we  need  not,  ignore  our  immediate 
duties  to  the  collective  life  of  this  group  of  people 
or  this  locality.  In  many  cases,  nay,  in  most  cases, 
our  life-work  may  be  immediately  concerned,  or  con- 
nected with,  a  certain  locality.  Whether  as  labourers, 
or  as  farmers,  or  as  landlords  ;  whether  as  artisans, 
or  as  managers,  or  as  proprietors  of  factories,  or  other 
industrial  enterprises  ;  whether  as  merchants  or  as 
tradesmen,  employers  or  employed,  we  thus  have 
distinct  and  definite  duties  towards  those  with  whom 
we  are  co-operating,  and,  outside  the  interests  of  the 
definite  work  in  hand,  we  are  directly  concerned  in 
the  collective  social  life  of  the  place  where  our  work 
and  our  interests  lie.  But  even  if  our  home  and 
residence  fall  within  a  district  far  removed  from  the 
actual  centre  of  our  life-work,  even  if  this  work  is 
of  so  immaterial  a  character  that  it  reaches  beyond  the 
locality  and  even  the  county,  our  immediate  duty  as 
members  of  such  a  community,  to  do  our  share  in 
regulating  the  social  life  surrounding  our  home,  al- 
ways remains. 

"  Nor  is  the  social  duty  which  we  have  here  to 
contemplate  merely  concerned  with  our  not  trans- 
gressing the  existing  laws  that  emanate  from  what  is 
called  social  legislation  ;  nor  is  it  only  concerned  with 
the  provision  of  all  that  goes  to  physical  subsistence 
within  the  community,  the  fight  with  poverty,  misery, 


SOCIAL   DUTIES  293 

and  want,  or  merely  with  the  increase  of  physical 
comforts  and  amenities ;  but  it  is  positively  and 
directly  concerned  with  the  advancement  and  im- 
provement of  the  social  life  as  such,  in  so  far  as  we 
come  into  contact  with  it.  It  even  concerns  our 
relation  with  every  member  of  such  a  community 
in  which  we  live. 

"  Hitherto  the  recognised  social  activity  in  what 
is  called  social  reform,  as  affecting  the  individual, 
and  still  more  as  leading  to  State  legislation,  has  been 
chiefly  concerned  either  with  the  avoidance  of  physical 
misery,  or  with  the  removal  of  injustice,  or  with  the 
increase  of  physical  comfort.  From  these  broad  and 
more  public  points  of  view  we  rise  to  the  consideration 
of  the  social  relation  of  individuals  among  each  other 
in  all  the  complexities  of  private  life,  and  intercourse 
not  only  in  business  or  work,  but  also  in  the  free  and 
varied  inter-relations  of  purely  social  existence. 
But  beyond  this  there  is  a  further  task,  when  we 
regard  human  society  as  a  whole.  We  must  then 
recognise  and  establish  in  each  successive  generation 
the  rules  governing  such  intercourse.  These  are 
established  by  an  attempt  to  adapt  life  to  the  existing 
and  constraining  conditions  which  we  find  about  us, 
to  make  it  run  smoothly  and  harmoniously  with  the 
least  friction  so  as  to  avoid  conflicts  and  consequent 
misery.  But,  by  calling  in  the  help  of  Plato,  such  rule 
of  social  conduct  may  be  raised  to  a  higher  level 
towards  the  perfection  of  social  intercourse  and  of 
society  as  a  whole.  Not  only  physically,  but  spiritu- 
ally as  well,  each  successive  generation  must  be  led 
on  to  higher  expressions  of  its  true  humanity,  to  the 
highest  expression  of  individual  man,  and  the  highest 
corporate  existence  of  society.  Kant's  Categorical 
Imperative,  which  enjoins  upon  us  to  act  so  that  we 
should  guard  in  everything  we  do  the  dignity  of  our 
neighbour  as  well  as  our  own,  will  ever  remain  one 
of  the  most  perfect  epigrammatic  summaries  of  the 
duties  of  man  as  a  social  being. 

"  As  I  have  said  before,  most  of  us  are  not  likely  to 
murder  or  to  steal  ;  but  we  are  all  of  us  prone  to 
murder  the  dignity  and  self-respect  of  our  neighbour, 


294  ETHICS 

to  steal  from  him  that  claim  to  regard  and  to  esteem 
which  is  his  by  right,  both  human  and  divine,  or  to 
wound  his  sensibility  by  our  own  acts  of  commission 
or  omission.  How  often  do  we  not  sin  from  a  want 
of  delicate  altruistic  imagination  ?  Without  directly 
wishing  to  hurt  or  harm,  we  are  led,  in  selfish  pre- 
occupation and  bluntness,  to  wound  a  man  to  the 
very  core  of  his  self-respect,  or  more  frequently  to 
disregard  and  ignore  his  harmless  vanity. 

"  Beyond  economical  prosperity,  even  beyond 
charitable  efforts  to  relieve  want  and  misery,  beyond 
fair  dealing  in  business  and  in  social  intercourse,  lies, 
for  the  true  conception  of  an  ideal  society,  the  Art 
of  Living  itself,  upon  the  refinement  and  constant 
realisation  of  which  depend  to  a  great  extent  the 
happiness  of  human  beings  and  the  advancement  of 
human  society.  To  make  our  homes  habitations 
which  should  harmonise,  and  thus  favour  the  free 
development  of  our  social  instincts,  and  to  prepare 
each  individual  for  such  perfect  intercourse  with  his 
fellow-men,  and  to  educate  and  to  encourage  the 
individual  thus  to  perfect  and  harmonise  his  life  in  order 
to  increase  happiness  for  himself  and  others,  is  the 
definite  duty  before  us.  The  claims  of  such  duty  are 
as  weighty  and  the  need  of  dealing  with  them  as  urgent 
as  are  all  the  more  manifest  and  serious  duties  of 
morality  which  have  hitherto  received  the  sanction 
of  moral  society  and  of  its  educators.  That  com- 
munity and  that  nation  is  highest  in  which  this  Art 
of  Living  is  most  completely  realised  in  the  home 
itself  and  in  the  training  of  the  individual.  .  .  . 

"  The  summary  of  the  qualities  which  prepare  men 
for  *  the  art  of  living/  that  most  important  factor  in 
the  ideals  of  human  society,  is  conveyed  by  the  one 
term  '  gentleman/  This  term  has  been  adopted  by 
most  European  nations  in  its  English  form  and  is  the 
modern  successor  of  the  mediaeval  knight  or  noble- 
man, of  the  Italian  cavaliere  of  the  Renaissance,  the 
French  gentilhomme,  and  the  modern  Austrian  return 
to  Medievalism  in  the  kavalier.  To  be  a  gentleman 
is  an  indispensable  condition  to  the  production  of  the 
superman. 


THE   GENTLEMAN  295 

"  The  ideal  of  the  gentleman  includes  in  its  connota- 
tion, above  all,  that  he  should  be  '  a  man  of  honour.' l 
Such  a  man  is  one  who  in  all  his  actions  strives  to  live 
up  to  his  highest  principles  in  spite  of  all  the  dictates 
of  self-interest  or  convenience  which  may  draw  or 
lead  him  in  another  direction.  He  has  embodied  in 
his  code,  irrespective  of  utility  or  advantage,  the 
highest  principles  of  social  ethics  prevalent  in  his  day. 
Honesty  and  absolute  integrity  in  all  his  dealings,  and 
truthfulness,  whether  it  be  in  the  material  business 
of  life  or  in  the  more  delicate  relations  of  social  inter- 
course, are  coupled  with  the  generosity  and  the 
courage  to  uphold  before  the  world  and  in  himself 
those  principles  which  wilfully  ignore  all  expediency. 
The  man  of  honour  is  he  who  can  never  act  meanly, 
think  meanly,  or  feel  meanly.  He  never  can  be  a 
moral  coward  any  more  than  a  physical  one.  He  is 
the  embodiment  of  virility  and  moral  courage.  He 
has  developed  in  himself  Plato's  TO  Oviwe&es,  true 
courage,  which  dominates  TO  eTrtOv^rjrLKov,  the  natural 
instincts  and  appetites,  and  enables  him,  if  need  be,  to 
stand  alone  amidst  the  ruins  of  selfishness  and  iniquity, 
dominating  the  life  about  him  : 

Si  fractus  illabatur  orbis, 
Impavidum  ferient  ruinae. 

"  But  it  is  in  this  conception  of  honour  that  the 
need  for  summarising  the  highest  ethical  principles 
successively  in  each  age,  to  the  insistence  upon  which 
this  whole  book  is  meant  to  contribute,  makes  itself 
most  clearly  felt.  For  there  can  be  no  doubt  that 

1  I  have  on  a  previous  occasion  (Jewish  Question,  2nd  ed.,  p.  324) 
attempted  to  define  honour  as  follows :  "  Honour  is  practical  con- 
science, conscience  carried  into  action  ;  and  the  man  of  honour  is 
one  in  whom  this  practical  conscience  has  become  second  nature, 
an  ineradicable  habit.  But  we  must  all  realise  how  frequent  are  the 
changes  in  the  denotation  of  this  term  '  honour.'  Each  period  and 
every  country  has  its  peculiar  conception  of  it,  and  one  age  may  op- 
pose or  ridicule  the  conception  held  by  another,  as  one  country  may 
deny  the  code  of  its  neighbour.  One  country  may  consider  it  to  be  a 
stern  dictate  of  the  code  of  honour  to  fight  a  duel  in  satisfaction  of 
wounded  vanity ;  while  another  country  may  laugh  it  away.  But 
what  always  remains,  and  will  remain,  is  the  connotation  of  honour — 
the  practical  conscience  as  affecting  our  common  social  life,  so  effective 
that  we  are  prepared  to  give  up  our  lives  in  order  to  follovy  its  dictates." 


296  ETHICS 

in  successive  generations  and  under  varying  social 
conditions,  as  well  as  with  the  different  occupations 
and  professions  of  life,  the  principles  and  standards 
of  honour  have  varied  and  must  naturally  vary. 
They  establish  the  accepted  code  of  honour  for  men 
and  women  living  under  these  changing  conditions, 
until  they  may  become  what,  in  a  derogatory  sense, 
is  called  a  convention  and  what  really  means  the 
crystallised  and  sometimes  fossilised  social  experience 
of  each  age,  community,  or  social  group. 

"  Now,  it  is  against  such  conventions  and  their 
effect  on  life  that  the  revolutionary  innovators  or 
reformers  in  our  own  day  above  all  make  war.  These, 
of  whom  Nietzsche  is  the  clearest  and  most  pro- 
nounced example,  endeavour  with  a  stroke  of  the 
pen  to  eradicate  from  human  society  the  sturdy 
plant  of  a  moral  growth  which  has  been  evolved  and 
strengthened  for  centuries,  grafted  upon  and  improved 
by  the  conditions  of  the  progressive  and  refined  life 
of  civilised  society.  By  one  stroke  of  the  pen,  they 
wish  to  extirpate  it  from  the  moral  consciousness 
of  men,  calling  it  a  convention  which  blocks  the  way 
to  the  advent  of  their  favourite  superman.  But 
because  there  is  no  doubt  that  the  conception  of 
honour  thus  varies  with  different  social  conditions, 
that  it  even  changes  in  its  character  and  nature 
with  the  different  social  gradations  affected  by  the  life 
occupation  of  groups  within  the  wider  communities, 
such  change  only  proves  the  vitality  and  all-pervading 
penetrative  effectiveness  of  such  a  conception  of 
social  ethics  and  the  urgent  need  for  the  constant 
revision  and  renewed  justification  of  its  existence  by 
the  application  of  the  highest  reason,  by  the  action 
of  Practical  Idealism. 

'  The  more  a  later  generation,  looking  back  with  the 
unprejudiced  clearness  of  impartial  apprehension, 
can  realise  the  limitations  and  even  distortions  in- 
herent in  the  conception  of  honour  in  previous  ages 
which  have  become  effete  social  conditions,  the  greater 
and  more  crying  becomes  the  need  to  modify  and  to 
define  a  new  conception  of  social  ethics  as  embodied 
in  the  idea  of  honour  in  accordance  with  the  best 


HONOUR  297 

that  the  succeeding  age  can  think  and  realise.  The 
ideals  embodied  in  the  Principe  of  Machiavelli,  even 
in  the  Cortegiano  of  Castiglione,  and  to  some  extent 
in  the  Letters  of  Lord  Chesterfield  to  his  Son,  can  no 
longer  be  accepted  by  us.  Many  of  these  principles 
are  directly  repugnant  to  our  moral  sense  ;  while 
many  others  have  lost  their  significance  to  such  a 
degree  that  the  seriousness  and  emphasis  with  which 
they  are  upheld  appear  to  us  frivolous  and  inept, 
because  of  the  complete  change  in  the  social  con- 
stitution and  the  actual  life  of  our  own  time  and 
society.  Still,  many  of  the  fundamental  principles 
might  remain,  and  might  be  incorporated  into  a 
modern  code. 

"  If  we  thus  consider  the  conception  of  honour 
from  the  historical  point  of  view,  we  find  that  the 
highest  honour  in  a  definite  society  or  State  is  esta- 
blished by  the  ruling  class  within  that  State.  The 
keynote  in  a  community  with  effective  aristocratic 
classification  from  the  ruling  classes  down  to  the 
serfs  is  struck  by  the  ruling  class.  Not  infrequently 
the  members  of  such  a  class  claim  for  themselves  (and 
the  claims  may  be  admitted  by  the  lower  and  humbler 
gradations  of  society)  the  monopoly  in  the  possession 
of  the  attributes  of  honour. 

"  Wherever  such  fixed  and  stereotyped  class  dis- 
tinctions exist,  the  lower  and  humbler  classes  may 
accept  such  exclusion  from  the  claim  of  honour  or, 
at  all  events,  may  themselves  be  lowered  in  their 
moral  vitality  in  this  respect  and  to  that  extent.  To 
give  but  one  broad  instance,  not  so  remote  in  time 
from  ourselves  :  The  extreme  effectiveness  as  regards 
honour  pertaining  to  the  ruling  class  of  the  Samurai 
in  Japan  has  depressed  the  moral  standards  for  the 
commercial  and  other  classes  in  that  country,  so  that, 
in  spite  of  the  exceptional  loftiness  of  moral  standards 
among  the  Samurai,  the  commercial  honesty  and 
integrity  and  all  those  social  qualities  affected  by 
the  conception  of  honour  have  been  lowered  among 
the  Japanese  merchants  and  traders  compared  with 
those  of  China,  although  I  understand  that  some 
improvement  has  recently  been  effected  in  this 


298  ETHICS 

respect.  As  the  uncompromising  and  stereotyped 
class  exclusiveness  in  Japan  is  making  way  for  wider 
democratic  freedom,  the  higher  standards  of  the 
Samurai  may  become  inadequate  and  lose  their 
effectiveness  ;  but,  on  the  other  hand,  the  ideas 
of  commercial  honour  and  other  social  and  ethical 
forces  will  extend  and  rise  as  the  need  for  such  ex- 
tension and  elevation  makes  itself  felt  with  the  rise 
in  social  position  of  the  formerly  repressed  classes. 
This  process  of  national  and  social  transformation 
is  one  of  the  greatest  problems  facing  the  people  in 
Japan.  The  same  phenomenon  may  be  perceived 
in  comparing  the  social  conditions  of  the  free  Con- 
tinental towns  during  the  Middle  Ages,  which  were  not 
dependent  upon,  and  were  unaffected  by,  the  con- 
ditions of  life  prevailing  amongst  the  nobility  in  the 
country,  and  where,  therefore,  standards  of  honour 
pertaining  to  commerce,  trades,  and  handicrafts  were 
evolved,  which  could  not  be  repressed  to  a  secondary 
and  in  so  far  more  degraded  position  by  the  com- 
parative superiority  of  social  conditions  and  of  honour 
in  the  nobility. 

"  In  the  same  way  in  our  own  days,  the  careful 
observer  may  note  that  in  countries  and  communities 
where  social  consideration  assigns  a  higher  position 
to  those  occupations  and  conditions  of  life  remote 
from  commerce  and  trade,  the  social  standing  and 
the  standards  of  social  living,  ultimately  the  con- 
ception of  honour  among  merchants  and  tradesmen, 
are  not  as  high  as  in  those  communities  where  com- 
merce and  trade  are  not  thus  placed  on  a  lower  level. 
It  is  equally  undoubted  that  occupations  in  life,  and 
their  direct  influence  upon  the  mode  of  living,  have 
established  special  standards  of  social  morality  in 
themselves. 

11  The  conditions  of  direct  barter,  for  instance,  are 
lower  than  in  commerce,  because  they  leave  such  a 
wide  margin  to  personal  persuasiveness,  and  even 
deception,  which  cannot  obtain  in  those  larger  com- 
mercial transactions  where  the  object  bought  or  sold 
cannot  be  seen  or  tested  on  the  spot,  and  where, 
therefore,  the  appeal  to,  and  the  direct  need  of, 


CHIVALRY  299 

faith  and  trust  in  the  truthful  statement  of  vendor 
and  purchaser  are  a  necessary  condition  to  all  com- 
mercial transactions.  The  presentation  of  a  small 
sample  in  the  hand  to  represent  a  shipload  of  such 
goods  presupposes  veracity  on  the  part  of  the  vendor 
and  of  faith  on  the  part  of  the  purchaser.  Higher 
principles  and  commercial  integrity,  commercial 
honour,  may  therefore  be  evolved  in  such  wider 
commerce  and  may  establish  themselves  among  all 
those  following  such  an  occupation  in  life.  I  wish 
merely  to  suggest,  and  leave  the  reader  to  work  it 
out  for  himself,  how  certain  trades  among  us,  from 
the  very  nature  of  the  uncertainty  inherent  in  the 
objects  offered  for  sale,  have  proverbially  produced 
standards  of  honour  greatly  differing  from  those 
prevalent  in  other  commercial  dealings.  .  .  . 

"  The  gentleman  is  thus,  before  all  things,  a  man 
of  honour.  He  possesses  a  highly  developed  and 
refined  sense  of  truth,  honesty,  and  justice,  tempered 
by  a  strong  impulse  of  generosity  which  goes  with 
strength  and  is  the  essential  element  of  chivalry.  The 
consciousness  of  superior  strength  must  display  itself 
in  its  attitude  towards  weakness.  This  in  no  way 
establishes  the  rule  of  the  weak  ;  '  the  ethics  of 
slaves,'  and  the  dominance  of  the  inferior  ;  for  the 
true  gentleman  has  ultimate  ideals  for  society  and 
humanity  at  large  of  a  distinctly  aristocratic  char- 
acter, that  is,  the  predominance  of  what  is  best,  and 
will  fearlessly  work  towards  the  realisation  of  these 
ideals.  He  will  assert  his  power  to  this  end,  though 
such  an  assertion  in  no  way  precludes  his  generosity 
towards  the  weak,  whom  he  will  thereby  raise  and 
not  degrade  to  the  slavery  which  blind  and  im- 
moral power  imposes  to  the  ultimate  undoing  of  its 
own  strength  and  virtue.  I  repeat,  the  superman  who 
is  not  a  gentleman  is  inconceivable. 

'  The  same  sense  of  chivalry  must  show  itself  in 
the 'attitude  of  man  towards  woman.  He  will  always 
remain  conscious  of  the  fact,  and  manifest  this  con- 
sciousness in  his  actions  towards  her,  that  he  is  physi- 
cally the  stronger  and  will  not  take  advantage  of  her 
weakness.  If  he  does  not  act  thus,  he  will  sin  against 


300  ETHICS 

his  sense  not  only  of  justice  but  of  fairness  and 
generosity.  On  the  other  hand,  he  will  not  insult 
and  degrade  woman  by  excluding  her  from  moral 
responsibility  and  from  the  dictates  of  reason  and 
pure  justice  and  conceive  her  as  an  irresponsible 
being.  All  that  has  been  said  of  honour  and  all  social 
virtues  applies  to  woman  in  a  form  suitable  to  her 
nature. 

"  Beside  and  beyond  being  a  man  of  honour  and 
responding  to  the  weightier  duties  of  honesty,  justice, 
and  chivalry,  the  true  gentleman  will  develop  in 
himself  what,  from  a  mistaken  view  of  the  needs  of 
social  life,  may  be  considered  the  lighter  and  less 
important  duties.  These  are  the  social  qualities 
upon  which  the  free  intercourse  of  human  beings 
among  each  other  as  social  beings  depends  ;  and  from 
this  point  of  view — of  social  intercourse  and  the 
aggregate  daily  life  of  human  society — they  are  most 
weighty.  They  are  the  essential  elements  in  man's 
humanity,  in  the  restricted  acceptation  of  that  term, 
which  make  him  human  and  produce  the  humanities. 
The  sins  which  most  of  us  commit  in  our  ordinary 
daily  life  chiefly  fall  under  this  category,  and  from 
this  point  of  view  they  are  most  serious  and  become 
almost  heinous.  In  fact,  the  sins  against  the  hu- 
manities are  as  serious  as  the  sins  against  humanity  ; 
they  demand  no  less  energetic  resistance  because  they 
are  the  sins  nearly  all  of  us  are  most  likely  to  commit. 
To  put  it  epigrammatically,  if  not  with  paradoxical 
exaggeration  :  for  most  of  us  it  may  be  as  great  a 
sin  to  commit  a  rudeness,  to  show  a  want  of  considera- 
tion, to  shirk  answering  a  letter,  to  refrain  from  paying 
a  call  which  might  reassure  other  human  beings  of 
our  regard,  or  avoid  wounding  them  by  ignoring  them, 
as  to  refuse  a  contribution  to  a  deserving  charity  or 
to  visit  the  slums,  where,  it  is  more  than  likely,  our 
presence  is  not  required  and  may  do  no  good.  The 
gentleman  manifests  breeding,  consideration,  and  tact ; 
his  whole  nature  is  harmoniously  attuned  to  respond 
to  all  the  calls  from  the  human  beings  with  whom  he 
comes  in  contact,  and  to  dispel  all  discords  in  the  life 
which  immediately  touches  his  own.  The  meaning 


GOOD   MANNERS  301 

of  this  humanity  or  humaneness  has  never  been 
more  perfectly  expounded  than  in  the  passage  of 
M.  Bergson."1 

In  dealing  with  the  Art  of  Living  in  the  previous 
chapter,  I  have  dwelt  upon  all  those  amenities  and 
refinements  of  life  which,  apparently  only  dealing 
with  the  surface  of  life,  go  deep  down  into  the  char- 
acter, and  even  the  morality,  of  the  individual  and 
the  social  foundations  of  every  community  as  a 
whole.  The  duty  of  man  to  his  fellow-beings  in  his 
purely  social  intercourse  with  them  demands  his 
compliance  with  all  the  standards  of  conduct  sum- 
marised under  the  term — Good  Manners,  Considerate- 
ness  and  Tact — and  includes  the  proper  care  and 
cultivation  of  even  his  physical  habits,  the  cleanliness 
of  his  person  and  of  his  dress,  and  even  the  mani- 
festation of  his  best  taste  in  his  dress  and  in  general 
appearance.  In  highly  civilised  communities,  in 
contradistinction  to  the  cave-dwellers  of  prehistoric 
ages,  it  is  not  likely  that  man  will  be  primarily  con- 
cerned in  righting  his  fellow-men  nor  in  taking  the 
lives  of  their  family,  clan,  or  race,  or  in  carrying  off 
their  property,  including  their  wives.  Thus  these 
fundamental  rules  of  life,  which  have  long  since  been 
embodied  in  formalised  "  Law,"  do  not  apply  to  the 
lives  of  the  vast  majority  of  modern  men  and  women. 
But  the  man  of  to-day  is  in  danger  of  wounding  or 
injuring  his  neighbour  by  selfish  aggressiveness  of 
conduct,  or  by  inconsiderateness  and  disregard  of  the 
self-esteem  or  the  dignity  of  his  neighbour,  or  even  of 
encroaching  upon  his  neighbour's  comfort  and  im- 
pairing the  general  easy  flow  of  social  intercourse,  by 

1  Quoted  from  the  Moniteur  de  Puy-de-D6me,  August  5,  1885,  in 
Henri  Bergson:  An  Account  of  Life  and  Philosophy,  by  Algot  Rule  and 
Nancy  Margaret  Paul,  p.  10.  See  also  the  passages  quoted  from 
Cardinal  Newman  and  Mr.  G.  Lowes  Dickinson  in  Aristodemocracy, 
p.  292  seq. 


302  ETHICS 

rudeness  or  want  of  thoughtfulness.  It  is  thus  in 
these  particulars,  so  often  neglected,  if  not  absolutely 
ignored  by  ethics,  that  a  very  important,  in  fact 
essential,  province  of  the  laws  of  conduct  is  to  be 
found. 

"  The  gentleman  thus  conceived  is  the  highest 
social  being.  The  practical  necessity,  and,  certainly, 
the  practical  advantage,  of  clearly  establishing  this 
ideal  and  of  forcing  it  into  the  consciousness  of  all 
members  of  a  community  as  such  an  ideal,  cannot  be 
overestimated.  For  no  moral  education  is  effective 
unless  a  type  of  highest  morality  can  be  clearly 
brought  to  the  consciousness  of  those  who  are  to  be 
affected.  I  may  be  allowed  to  recall  my  own  youth- 
ful experiences  and  at  the  same  time  to  record  my 
debt  of  gratitude  to  those  schoolmasters  and  school- 
mistresses in  America — not  to  mention  the  earliest 
home-teaching  in  that  country — who  constantly  held 
up  before  the  young  people  some  such  ideal  of  a  gentle- 
man, be  it  by  positively  stimulating  ambition  to 
live  up  to  it  by  self-repression  and  by  definite  coura- 
geous assertion  ;  or,  negatively,  by  conveying  their 
condemnation  of  a  mean  or  unworthy  act  by  denying 
to  the  delinquent  the  right  to  consider  himself  a 
gentleman.  The  appeal  is  here  chiefly  made,  not 
so  much  directly  to  stern  morality  and  to  the  conscious 
weighing  and  balancing  of  moral  injunctions,  as  to 
our  aesthetic  faculties,  to  our  taste,  from  which 
admiration  or  disgust  naturally  emanate.  And  it  is 
in  this  aesthetic  form  that  moral  teaching  may  perhaps 
be  most  effective  ;  not  by  an  appeal  to  duty  and 
theory,  but  by  an  appeal  to  taste.  No  moral  disci- 
pline, moreover,  has  become  thoroughly  efficient 
until  it  has  been  absorbed  into  man's  natural  tastes 
and  preferences  ;  as  we  may  also  say  that  no  general 
social  laws  have  become  efficient  until  they  have  been 
transformed  into  admitted  social  traditions  and 
customs,  or  even  until  they  have  become  fashionable, 
and  are  classified  in  the  prevailing  vernacular  as 
1  good  or  bad  form.' 

"  All  these  particular  and    later  ramifications  of 


DUTIES   TO   THE    STATE  303 

our  social  duties,  however,  are  summarised  in,  and 
naturally  lead  to,  the  establishment  of  wider  social 
ideals,  in  which  the  intercourse  between  human  beings, 
productive  of  material  good,  tends  to  the  advance  of 
all  social  groups  towards  such  final  ideals,  and  facili- 
tates and  accelerates  the  dominance  of  what  is  best. 

"  In  this  ascending  scale  we  thus  rise  beyond  the 
individual  and  the  larger  or  smaller  communities,  as 
well  as  the  social  groupings  and  classes,  to  the  State, 
and,  finally,  to  humanity  as  a  whole."  * 


DUTIES  TO  THE  STATE 

We  shall  have  to  deal  incidentally  with  duties 
of  the  individual  to  the  State  when  dealing  with 
Politics.  These  duties  have  been  greatly  modified 
in  the  course  of  the  evolution  of  society  and  even  in 
the  more  recent  history  of  civilised  communities  and 
States.  They  must  of  necessity  be  diversified  and 
modified  with  the  changes  of  the  political  constitution 
of  the  State.  In  purely  autocratic  States,  a  personal 
and  paternal  government,  practically  the  only  duty 
of  the  citizen  or  subject  was  obedience.  With  the 
growth  of  liberty  the  moral  responsibilities  of  the 
citizen  have  grown.  In  democratic  States — with 
which  we  are  here  concerned — obedience,  so  far  from 
being  superseded  as  a  civic  virtue,  is  extended  and 
intensified.  The  very  fact  that  the  laws  are  ulti- 
mately made  by  the  citizens  themselves  makes  them 
all  the  more  morally  binding  upon  those  who  live 
under  them  ;  while  the  duty  of  the  citizen  to  contri- 
bute his  share  in  the  making  and  modification  of  laws 
under  which  he  lives  becomes  paramount.  It  is 
thus  one  of  his  primary  duties  to  vote,  and  to  vote, 
directly  or  indirectly,  in  the  direction  which  in  every 
instance  he  considers  to  be  most  in  the  interests  of 
the  State  and  its  citizens.  But  it  is  equally  in- 

1  Aristodemocracy,  pp.  311-12. 


304  ETHICS 

cumbent  upon  him  to  become  thoroughly  acquainted 
with  the  laws  and  constitution  of  his  country  and  to 
fulfil  every  public  political  function  which  the  con- 
stitution bestows  upon  him.  Ignorance  of  the  law 
is  no  plea  to  justify  its  transgression.  On  no  account 
is  the  free  citizen  of  a  democratic  country  to  regard 
the  State  as  his  antagonist  or  enemy  whose  injunc- 
tions he  may  oppose  or  circumvent.  The  taxes  and 
dues  which  the  State  imposes  are  ultimately  de- 
manded and  fixed  by  the  voter  himself,  and  he  must 
realise  that  he  is  clearly  dishonest  when  he  robs  the 
State. 

If  this  applies  to  the  internal  national  life  of  the 
State,  it  also  extends  to  the  relation  between  his  own 
State  and  other  States  ;  and  it  is  here,  while  willingly, 
in  fact  passionately,  following  the  dictates  of  patriot- 
ism, that  he  should  also  exert  himself  so  to  direct  the 
foreign  policy  of  his  own  country  that  the  laws  of 
justice  and  morality  may  prevail  in  such  international 
dealings. 

Above  all,  in  the  most  generalised,  as  well  as  the 
most  individual,  aspects  of  man's  relation  to  the 
State,  every  citizen  must  by  his  thought  and  action 
endeavour  to  advance  his  own  State  higher  in  the 
direction  of  civilisation,  culture  and  morality. 

DUTY  TO  HUMANITY 

"  Through  our  duty  to  the  State  we  are  necessarily 
made  to  face  our  duty  to  humanity  at  large.  Nor 
will  the  fulfilment  of  our  duties  in  the  narrower 
spheres,  which  we  have  hitherto  traversed  and  which 
have  led  us  through  the  State  to  the  infinitely  wider 
regions  of  humanity,  clash  with  these  ultimate  duties 
with  which  they  can  be,  and  must  be,  harmonised. 
The  real  difficulty  in  the  activity  of  the  State  and  in 
the  relation  of  States  to  human  society  as  a  whole  will 
always  be  to  reconcile  the  due  care  and  regard  for 
the  mass  of  the  people  who  require  protection  and 


SOCIALISM    AND   INDIVIDUALISM         305 

support  in  the  conflict  of  individualities  of  unequal 
strength,  with  the  encouragement  of  the  strong  and 
higher  individualities,  through  whom  human  society 
is  actually  advanced  and  humanity  draws  nearer 
to  its  ideals.  It  is  the  great  problem  of  reconciling 
Socialism  with  Individualism.  Such  a  reconciliation 
is  often  considered  to  be  hopeless  and  is  given  up 
as  such.  But  it  is  possible,  nay,  necessary  ;  only 
the  two  principles  apply  to  different  layers  of  human 
society.  The  socialistic  point  of  view,  in  which  the 
individual  is  restrained  in  deference  to  the  rights  of 
existence  of  all,  in  which  the  stronger  is  checked  in 
his  dominating  course  in  order  to  protect  and  support 
the  weaker,  is  right,  if  we  consider  only  the  weaker 
members  of  human  society  ;  and  it  is  right  that  our 
social  legislation,  the  direct  intervention  of  the  State 
in  the  processes  of  human  competition,  should  be  in 
the  socialistic  spirit  and  should  be  wholly  concerned 
with  the  poor  and  the  weak.  Old  Age  Pensions  and 
National  Insurance  are  clearly  socialistic  in  character, 
and  it  is  right  that  the  State  should  thus  fulfil  one  of 
its  primary  duties  of  supporting  and  protecting  those 
who  require  such  support  and  protection.  It  is 
equally  right,  and  it  will  be  realised  still  more  in  the 
future,  that  the  State  must  protect  itself  and  the 
community  at  large  against  the  undue  power  which, 
owing  to  dominant  economical  conditions  and  the 
protection  which  the  State  affords,  tends  to  accrue 
to  individuals  in  such  a  form  and  to  such  a  degree 
that  it  endangers  the  welfare  of  society  and  the  se- 
curity of  the  State  itself — is,  in  fact,  against  '  good 
policy.'  Congestion  of  capital  into  single  hands  to 
such  a  degree  that  the  power  it  affords  without 
responsibility  or  control,  becomes  a  danger  to  society, 
must  be  checked  by  the  constitutional  means  which 
the  State  has  at  its  disposal.  As  I  have  previously 
said,  I  thus  plead  for  socialism  at  the  top  and  bottom  ; 
but  for  pure  individualism  in  between.  Excess  of 
wealth  and  excess  of  poverty  must  be  checked  by 
collective  legislation  from  a  collective  point  of  view  ; 
but  when  society  is  thus  secure  at  its  two  extremes, 
where  the  prohibitory  action  of  the  State  is  called 

21 


306  ETHICS 

in  to  produce  such  security,  full  freedom  must  be  left 
to  the  individual  to  assert  and  to  realise  superior 
powers,  through  which  effort  the  individual  and 
society  at  large  advance  and  are  perfected.  Within 
the  two  extremes  of  the  human  scale  inequality  is 
to  be  encouraged  in  order  to  give  free  scope  to  moral 
and  intellectual  forces.  Until  trade  unions  recognise 
this,  their  activity  will  be  immoral  and  retrograde. 
Our  motto  must  be  :  '  Liberty,  fraternity,  and  in- 
equality/ Democracy  must  never  degenerate  into 
ochlocracy.  Every  democracy  must  be  aristocratic 
in  tendency  and  aim  ;  for  with  equality  of  oppor- 
tunity it  must  encourage  the  realisation  of  the  best. 
Socrates,  as  recorded  by  Plato  and  by  Xenophon, 
has  put  the  point  in  the  simplest  and  most  convincing 
form  by  the  parable  of  the  flute-player  who  is  good 
and  useful,  and  the  helmsman  who  is  good  and  use- 
ful ;  but  we  do  not  call  in  the  helmsman  to  play  the 
flute,  and  we  do  not  entrust  the  ship  to  the  flute- 
player. 

"  The  claims  of  the  poor  and  humble,  for  which 
Christ  pleaded,  can  be  reconciled  with  those  of  the 
superman.  As  in  the  moral  consciousness  of  the 
individual  charity  and  high  ambition  can  and  must 
go  hand  in  hand,  so  in  the  State  the  care  of  the  poor 
and  feeble,  their  protection  from  the  rapacious 
onslaught  of  the  strong  and  grasping,  all  those  acts 
of  legislation  and  administration  which  not  only 
recognise  the  lowly  and  the  lowest,  but  ever  tend  to 
establish  and  maintain  equality  of  rights,  must,  on 
the  other  hand,  encourage  the  advance  of  strong 
and  superior  individuals  and  corporate  bodies,  and 
raise  the  standard  of  living  and  social  efficiency.  In 
so  far  the  State  will  confirm  and  encourage  inequality. 
All  its  functions  will  converge  in  ultimately  raising 
the  ideals  of  humanity.  Plato  will  then  be  reconciled 
with  Christ." 

THE  DUTIES  WHICH  ARE  NOT  SOCIAL  AND  THE 

IMPERSONAL  DUTIES 

"  In  all  our  ethical  considerations  hitherto  we  have 
considered  man,  if  not  from  the  exclusively  altruistic 


IMPERSONAL   DUTIES  307 

point  of  view,  at  least  from  the  social  point  of  view. 
We  have  conceived  man  too  exclusively  as  Aristotle's 
social  animal  (f  oW  TTO^TLKOV).  If  this  were  the  only  con- 
ception we  form  of  man,  our  ethical  system,  human 
morality,  would  be  imperfect,  if  not  completely  at 
fault,  both  from  a  practical  as  well  as  a  theoretical 
point  of  view.  As  a  matter  of  fact  both  our  ethical 
systems  and  the  ethical  thought  and  the  prevailing 
habit  of  mind  among  thinking  and  conscientious 
people  are  defective,  because  they  conceive  man 
exclusively,  or  at  least  too  predominantly,  merely 
as  a  social  being,  merely  in  his  relation  to  human 
society  and  to  his  fellow-men.  Our  ethical  thought 
thus  suffers  from  '  Human  Provincialism  ' — or  per- 
haps more  properly  put,  the  '  Provincialism  of  Hu- 
manity.' Our  philosophy  is,  in  the  first  place,  too 
social,  and  in  the  second  place  too  psychological. 
To  introduce  man  where  he  is  not  needed  is  false,  as 
it  blocks  the  way  to  the  attainment  of  ultimate  truth. 
If  this  be  so,  even  from  the  highest  philosophical  point 
of  view,  it  is  also  so  in  the  ordinary  course  of  daily 
life  ;  for  we  do  not,  even  in  practice,  follow  the  purely 
social  and  psychological  conception  of  our  duties. 
The  labourer  who  works  at  a  definite  task  does  not 
think  of  man,  or  the  relation  of  his  work  to  man,  while 
he  is  engaged  upon  it.  Still  less  does  the  student  of 
higher  science  allow  the  thought  of  man  to  intrude 
into  his  search  for  truth.  Thus  neither  practically 
nor  theoretically  are  we  guided  by  this  primary 
conception  of  man's  social  nature.  In  fact,  one  of 
the  supreme  and  most  arduous  tasks  of  the  scientific 
student  and  the  philosopher  is  to  discard  the  personal 
equation,  all  human  bias,  the  various  '  idols  '  (as 
Bacon  called  them)  which  distort  and  falsify  truth  and 
block  the  way  to  its  secure  establishment.  What  we 
really  do  in  practical  life  and  strive  to  do  in  the  life 
of  pure  thought  is,  without  considering  human  and 
social  relationships  and  duties,  to  perform  the  action 
and  to  solve  the  task  we  are  working  at  as  perfectly  as 
it  can  be  performed,  and,  as  men,  to  approach  as  nearly 
as  we  can  to  the  perfect  type  of  the  man  we  ought  to 
be.  We  do  this  more  or  less  consciously,  and  we  have 


308  ETHICS 

before  our  minds  more  or  less  clearly  this  pattern  or 
ideal  of  our  self  to  live  up  to.  If  this  is  so  in  our 
life  we  as  live  it,  from  an  ethical  point  of  view,  there 
is  no  doubt  also  that  it  ought  to  be  so. 

11  Our  ethics  would  thus  not  be  complete,  unless 
we  adjust  this  one-sided  exaggeration  of  the  social, 
as  well  as  the  psychological,  bearings  of  the  problem. 
Man  must  be  considered  in  himself,  in  his  relation  to 
himself,  and  also  to  his  ideal  self  ;  also  in  his  relation 
to  the  world  of  things,  to  his  actions,  functions,  and 
duties  in  themselves,  irrespective  of  their  social 
bearing. 

"  Man  must  also  be  considered  in  his  relationship 
to  nature  and  to  the  world,  irrespective  of  the  definite 
relationship  which  these  on  their  part  may  hold  to 
man  and  to  humanity — he  must  break  through  the 
crust  or  tear  the  veil,  pass  beyond  the  restrictive 
boundaries  of  '  Humanitarian  Provincialism.'  To 
put  it  into  philosophical  terms  :  his  final  outlook 
must  not  only  be  psychological,  but  must  ultimately 
lead  him  to  that  intellectual  eminence  where  he  can 
become  cosmological,  metaphysical,  and  theological 
— the  climax  of  his  whole  spiritual  life  being  now, 
as  it  was  in  the  past  and  as  it  will  be  in  the  future, 
his  religious  life.  The  psychologist  may  remind  us 
that,  after  all,  man  can  only  think  as  man,  neither 
as  a  stone  nor  a  plant,  nor  as  a  being  from  Mars  or 
any  other  planet,  nor  as  a  demigod.  But  surely,  as 
men,  we  can  and  must  conceive  man  not  as  a  purely 
and  exclusively  social  being — and  we  constantly 
have  before  us,  without  in  any  way  appealing  to  our 
philosophical  thought,  man's  relation  to  nature  and 
to  the  universe  and  to  infinity.  Vast  as  this  prospect 
may  appear  to  us  it  will  be  found  that  it  is  applied 
in  our  ordinary  daily  life,  not  only  by  thinkers  and 
leaders  of  men,  but  even  by  the  humblest  and  most 
thoughtless  among  us. 

"  We  have  thus  finally  to  consider  :  (i)  our  duty 
to  our  self  ;  (2)  our  duty  in  respect  of  things  and  acts  ; 
(3)  our  duty  to  the  world  and  to  God. 

"  In  the  ethical  aspect  of  this  threefold  relationship, 
we  must  be  guided  by  Plato.  In  realising,  both  as 


DUTY   TO   OUR   SELF  309 

regards  ourselves  and  the  definite  functions  and 
activities  of  man,  and  finally  as  regards  our  conception 
of  the  universe  and  the  ultimate  infinite  powers  of 
all,  the  highest  and  the  purest  ideals  which  we  can 
form  of  each,  with  which  we  thus  establish  a  relation- 
ship, we  may  realise  and  emphasise  our  own  imperfec- 
tion and  our  remoteness  from  such  ideals.  But,  all 
the  same,  such  high  mental  activity  on  our  part  will 
not  end  in  an  idle  and  resultless  play  of  the  imagina- 
tion and  a  dissipation  of  intellectual  energy  ;  but 
will  be,  and  is,  of  the  greatest  practical  value  in  the 
sober  and  unfailing  guidance  of  human  action  towards 
the  highest  ethical  goal. 


DUTY  TO  OUR  SELF 

:<  This  duty  to  our  Self,  as  we  here  conceive  it,  really 
means  the  supreme  and  constraining  power  which, 
through  the  exercise  of  the  imagination,  an  ever- 
present  image  of  an  ideal  self  has  over  us.  Such  an 
active  imagination  and  its  power  of  enforcing  itself 
even  upon  the  most  sluggish  temperament  and  under- 
standing is  not  limited  to  the  most  highly  developed 
among  us,  but  is  the  possession  of  practically  all 
human  beings.  In  its  lowest  and,  perhaps,  reprehensible 
form,  it  manifests  itself  in  vanity  ;  in  the  higher  forms 
it  leads  to  self-respect  and  practical  idealism.  It,  of 
course,  includes,  and  is  to  a  great  extent  made  up 
of,  man's  conception  of  himself  as  a  social  being. 
But  it  occupies  the  mind  and  stimulates  and  guides 
action,  not  because  of  any  definite  social  relationship 
but  because  of  the  relationship  which  we  hold  to  our 
self  as  a  whole,  to  our  own  personality,  as  it  manifests 
itself  to  us  in  all  acts  of  self-consciousness.  Our 
vanity,  our  self-respect,  and  our  idealism  are  gratified 
in  the  degree  in  which  we  are  successful  or  in  which 
our  individual  achievement,  or  the  wholeness  of  our 
personality,  conforms  to  the  model,  or  pattern,  the 
ideal  which  we  form  of  our  self. 

'  This  even  includes  the  essence  of  what  we  call 
conscience.  For  whether  conscience  originally  springs 
from  fear,  or  assumes  a  relation  to  beings  outside  and 


310  ETHICS 

beyond  ourselves,  its  essence  really  is  to  be  found  in 
the  dominance  which  our  ever-present  conception  of 
a  perfect  self  has  over  our  faltering  and  imperfect 
self.  The  degree  of  the  discomfort  or  pain  which 
conscience  may  evoke  in  us  is  measured  by  the  dis- 
crepancy between  our  actual  self  and  the  image  of 
our  perfect  self.  Far  more  than  most  people  would 
admit,  our  imagination  is  ever  effective  in  thus 
appealing  to  a  quasi-dramatic  instinct  in  us,  in  which 
we  are  acting  our  part,  not  so  much  in  life's  play  of 
which  '  all  the  world's  a  stage/  but  in  that  smaller 
microcosmical  world  (infinitely  great  to  us)  circum- 
scribed by  our  actual  and  better  self,  in  which,  under 
the  promptership  of  imagination,  the  two  selves 
are  at  once  actors  and  audience.  Far  more  than  we 
would  admit  are  we  thus  always  acting  a  part,  evoking 
alternate  applause  and  reproof,  and  fashioning  our 
course  of  action  towards  good  or  evil.  And  if  this  is 
actually  the  case,  it  is  right  that  it  should  be  so  ;  and 
what  may  in  one  aspect  feed  our  lowest  vanity,  in 
another  produces  our  highest  aspirations  and  leads 
us  onward  and  upward  to  the  noblest  and  best  that 
is  in  man. 

"  It  may  even  be  held — and  I  for  one  do  hold- 
that  the  purest  and,  perhaps,  the  noblest  guide  to 
conduct  and  to  the  rule  of  the  highest  morality  is 
to  be  found  in  the  establishment  of  such  a  relation- 
ship to  our  self  in  a  direct  and  effective  intensity  of 
moral  guidance.  When  our  moral  efforts — be  it  in 
the  repression  of  the  lower  instincts  and  desires  or 
in  the  exertion  of  all  our  energy  and  power  towards 
work  and  deeds  that  are  good — are  wholly  independent 
of  a  relationship  to  others,  to  their  regard  or  approval, 
but  are  determined  by  our  self-respect  and  self- 
realisation,  they  are  more  secure  in  producing  truly 
moral  results.  They  are  then  established  by  our  well- 
trained  habit  or  by  our  conscious  determination  to 
live  up  to  the  most  perfect  image  we  have  of  our  self  ; 
and  not  only  have  we  attained  to  a  higher  stage  of 
ethical  development  than  when  our  eyes  are  con- 
stantly turned  to  the  social  world  about  us,  but  also, 
as  moral  social  beings,  as  members  of  society,  we  shall 


ITS   MORAL   EFFICACIOUSNESS  311 

be  more  perfect  and  more  secure  in  our  course  of 
moral  action.  We  shall  thus  strive  to  make  both  body 
and  mind  perfect  in  their  form  and  in  their  function  ; 
we  shall  endeavour  to  maintain  that  supreme  har- 
mony of  being  which  the  ancient  philosophers  held  up 
as  the  goal  of  man's  efforts.  But  more  than  this,  we 
shall  establish  the  greatest  security  for  our  every  act, 
and  under  all  the  most  fluid  and  varying  conditions  of 
environment,  maintain  the  loftiness  of  our  moral 
standards.  This  will  not  only  guide  us  in  choosing 
in  life  those  occupations  which  are  most  likely  to 
bring  out  the  best  that  is  in  us,  that  which  brings 
us  nearest  to  the  totality  of  our  highest  self,  the 
ideal  of  our  self  ;  not  only  will  it  urge  us  to  do  our 
best  work  and  to  struggle  against  fate  and  untoward 
circumstance  in  overcoming  opposition  within  and 
without,  but  it  will  securely  confirm  those  social 
qualities  which  we  must  develop  in  the  interest  of  a 
harmonious  society.  The  habits  which  we  thus  form, 
the  self-control  we  thus  impose  upon  ourselves,  the 
amenities  which  we  strive  to  cultivate  to  please  our 
fellow-men  and  to  improve  social  intercourse,  will  have 
their  perennial  origin,  justification,  and  vitalisation 
within  ourselves,  and  will  not  be  affected  by  the  un- 
certainty and  mutability  of  fortuitous  outer  circum- 
stances or  depend  upon  confirmation  from  without. 
We  shall  be  clean  of  body,  clear  of  mind,  and  delicate 
of  taste,  not  to  please  others  or  to  win  their  approval, 
but  because  our  own  self  would  not  be  perfect  without 
such  effort  and  achievement.  And  we  shall  thus  be 
furnished  with  an  efficient  guide,  not  only  in  the  loftier 
and  more  spiritual  spheres  of  our  life  and  being,  but 
even  in  the  humblest  and  most  commonplace  and 
lowly  actions  of  our  varied  existence.  To  cultivate 
our  habits  of  bodily  cleanliness  ;  to  dress  as  appro- 
priately and  tastefully  as  we  can  in  conformity  with 
our  position  and  activities  ;  to  eat  and  drink,  not  only 
in  moderation,  but  in  a  manner  expressive  of  refine- 
ment and  repressive  of  greed  and  animal  voracity — 
to  do  all  this,  even  if  we  were  placed  on  a  desert 
island,  isolated  from  all  social  intercourse,  simply 
because  we  wish  to  uphold  in  ourselves  the  best 


312  ETHICS 

standards  of  human  civilisation  and  to  make  ourselves 
perfect  human  beings,  marks  the  highest,  as  well  as  the 
most  efficient,  phase  of  ethical  culture. 

"  I  cannot  refrain  from  pointing  these  truths  by 
definite  illustrations  which  in  their  very  slightness 
will  emphasise  my  meaning.  I  have  been  assured 
by  a  friend  that,  when  he  finds  himself  in  a  state  of 
moral  indisposition  and  depression,  his  cure  is  to 
retire  from  his  companions,  to  work  hard  all  day,  and 
then  in  the  evening  to  dress  with  the  greatest  care 
and  punctiliousness,  arrange  his  room  as  perfectly 
as  possible  with  flowers  bedecking  the  table,  and  after 
his  evening  meal  to  turn  to  beautiful  books  or 
beautiful  thoughts.  When,  as  a  boy,  he  for  the  first 
time  left  his  home,  his  wise  mother  begged  him  as 
a  personal  favour  not  to  take  even  a  hasty  meal 
without  washing  ;  and,  if  others  did  not  do  it  for  him, 
that  he  should  lay  his  own  cloth,  be  it  only  with  a 
napkin,  if  he  could  not  find  a  tablecloth.  She  rightly 
felt  how  important  it  was  to  guard,  as  a  spontaneous 
and  vital  habit  of  mind,  the  higher  forms  of  civilisa- 
tion and  refinement.  On  the  other  hand,  I  have 
heard  of  a  case  where  a  man,  brought  up  and  accus- 
tomed to  civilised  habits,  was  found  in  the  backwoods 
of  Canada,  where  he  had  lived  as  a  lonely  settler 
for  some  years  without  even  washing  the  plates  after 
meals  because,  as  he  put  it,  '  the  food  all  came  from 
the  same  place  and  went  to  the  same  place.' 

"  There  is  perhaps  no  phase  of  ethical  teaching  and 
discipline  which  requires  more  emphasis,  develop- 
ment, and  insistence  than  the  group  of  duties  which 
ignore  the  social  and  directly  altruistic  aspect,  and 
deal  with  the  duties  to  ourselves,  making  them 
ultimately,  through  conscious  recognition,  an  efficient 
ethical  habit.  For  it  appears  to  me  that  our  ethical 
vision  has  been  distorted  as  regards  true  proportion, 
its  correctness  and  soundness  impaired  by  the  ex- 
clusive, or  at  all  events  exaggerated,  insistence  upon 
its  moral,  social,  and  humanitarian  province.  It 
has  justified  the  strongest  strictures  and  condemna- 
tion of  professed  amoralists  like  Nietzsche,  their 
opposition  of  the  prevalent  morality  and  the  de* 


DUTY   TO   THINGS   AND   ACTS  313 

generacy  to  which  so-called  altruism  must  lead.  At 
the  same  time  such  one-sided  theories  of  social 
altruism  cannot  tend  to  sane  happiness  :  they  can 
only  maintain  such  a  state  of  artificial  euphoria  by 
feverish  and  continuous  activity,  submerging  all 
consciousness  of  self,  in  which  we  deceive  or  flatter 
ourselves  into  believing  that  we  are  doing  good  to 
others.  And  when  we  cease  to  act  and  stop  to  think, 
we  are  thrown  into  a  maze  of  restless  querying  as 
regards  our  own  relation  to  our  fellow-men,  which 
ends  in  depression  or  even  in  despair.  We  can  only 
be  saved  by  following  Matthew  Arnold's  command- 
ment to — 

Resolve  to  be  thyself,  and  know  that  he 
Who  finds  himself  loses  his  misery." 


DUTY  TO  THINGS  AND  ACTS 

'  But  we  must  at  times  go  still  farther  in  our 
efforts  of  self-detachment.  Not  only  beyond  the 
social  aspect  of  our  duties,  but  even  beyond  our  own 
personalities,  must  we  realise  our  definite  duties 
to  things  and  our  relation  to  our  own  acts.  In  this 
form  of  supreme  self-repression  and  self-detachment 
for  the  time  being,  we  must  forget  ourselves  either 
in  pure  contemplation  or  in  definite  activity  and 
productiveness.  Pure  contemplation  finds  its  highest 
expression  in  science  and  in  art.  It  constitutes 
man's  theoretic  faculty.  To  realise  this  faculty 
in  spiritual  and  in  intellectual  activity  makes  of 
thought  and  emotion  an  activity  in  itself,  and  has 
led  mankind  to  its  highest  sphere  of  human  achieve- 
ment, namely,  the  development  of  sciences  and  arts. 
But  we  are  chiefly  concerned  with  action  and  achieve- 
ment themselves  as  distinct  from  thought  and  pure 
emotion.  Such  action  is  likely  to  be  the  more  sane, 
perfect,  and  effective  the  more  vigorous  and  con- 
centrated it  is  in  its  energy,  the  more  our  will  com- 
mands and  directs  our  energies,  as  well  as  our  passion 
and  physical  strength,  to  do  the  thing  before  us,  and 
to  forget  ourselves  in  the  doing  of  it.  '  Whatsoever 
thy  hand  findeth  to  do,  do  it  with  thy  might/ 


314  ETHICS 

"  Now,  as  there  is  an  ideal  of  a  human  being,  the 
ideal  or  type  for  animal  and  organic  beings,  in  fact 
for  all  forms  in  nature,  so  there  is  a  type  and  ideal 
for  each  definite  act — the  perfect  act.  This  is  a 
necessary  conclusion  of  the  Platonic  idea  and  of 
Aristotle's  eWeXe'xeta.  The  degree  in  which,  while 
acting,  we  approach  this  ideal  perfection  of  the  act 
itself  determines  our  triumph  or  failure,  our  satis- 
faction or  discontent.  The  dissatisfaction  and  de- 
pression which  we  feel  when  we  are  not  successful, 
the  divine  discontent  out  of  which  all  great  effort 
and  great  achievements  grow,  produces  in  us  a  con- 
science, irrespective  of  our  social  instincts,  irrespec- 
tive even  of  our  own  personality,  and  is,  perhaps, 
of  all  our  moral  impulses  the  highest  as  it  is  the  most 
effective.  Besides  this  ethical  bearing,  it  has  the 
most  supreme  practical  bearing  in  life  ;  for  only 
through  it  does  man  do  his  best,  individually  and 
collectively.  All  improvements,  inventions,  and  dis- 
coveries find  their  unassailable  justification  and 
effective  origin  in  this  principle  of  human  activity. 

"  No  doubt  there  are  no  new  achievements,  no 
discoveries  or  inventions,  which  from  the  mere  fact 
of  their  novelty  do  not  alter  the  existing  state  of 
things  to  which  they  are  related,  do  not  in  their  turn 
destroy  what  actually  exists  and  affect  adversely 
those  who  have  depended  upon  the  existing  state  of 
things.  In  so  far  as  this  is  so  they  may  produce  pain 
and  want  and  misery,  and  much  may  be  urged  against 
their  claims  from  other  points  of  view.  But  we 
must  ever  strive  to  produce  new  inventions  and  new 
improvements,  not  so  much  to  increase  the  fortunes 
of  the  discoverers  or  promoters,  not  for  the  merchants, 
not  even  for  the  labouring  populations,  to  whom 
the  exceptional  control  of  such  improvements  or 
facilities  of  production  gives  an  advantage  over 
others  ;  but  because  perfected  production  of  objects, 
man's  increased  control  over  chance,  over  nature, 
man's  defiance  of  restricted  time  and  space,  are 
thereby  advanced.  It  is  therefore  immoral  arti- 
ficially to  impede  or  to  retard  improvements  or  to 
lower  the  quantity  or  quality  of  production.  To 


PERFECTION   OF   WORKMANSHIP         315 

take  a  definite  instance,  which  the  individual  artisan 
and  the  organised  union  of  working-men  should 
remember  :  The  bricklayer's  duty  is  to  do  his  best 
work  as  a  bricklayer,  to  lay  as  many  bricks  and  to 
lay  them  as  perfectly  as  possible  in  as  short  a  time 
as  possible  :  not  so  much  to  increase  the  wealth  of 
his  employer  (though  this  too  is  his  duty  and  his 
definite  compact)  or  his  own  wealth  ;  but  because 
of  the  ideal  of  bricklaying,  which  must  be  the  ideal 
of  his  active  existence.  The  supreme  and  final 
justification  of  his  work  is  to  be  found  in  the  work 
itself,  irrespective  even  of  human  beings,  of  human 
society,  of  humanity. 

"  But  I  feel  bound  to  qualify  what  I  have  considered 
from  one  aspect  only,  though  in  its  absolute  and  un- 
assailable truth,  by  not  only  admitting  but  by 
urging  the  facts  that  there  are  duties  with  which 
man  individually  and  men  collectively  have  to  deal, 
though  these  in  no  way  weaken  the  absoluteness  of 
our  ideals  of  impersonal  work.  We  must  also  con- 
sider, recognise,  and  be  guided  in  our  action  by  the 
incidental  and  temporarysuffering  frequently  following 
in  the  wake  of  discoveries  and  inventions.  It  will, 
therefore,  devolve  on  society  to  alleviate  and,  if 
possible,  to  remove  such  incidental  suffering  brought 
upon  a  limited  group  of  individuals  for  the  benefit 
of  society  and  absolutely  justified  by  the  impersonal 
improvement  of  human  work  and  production.  Social 
legislation  will  here  have  to  step  in  and  to  supplement 
insurance  against  old  age,  against  disease,  and  even 
unavoidable  unemployment,  by  insurance  against 
acute  and  temporary  forms  of  unemployment  and 
dislocations  of  labour  caused  by  such  improvements 
and  inventions.  Such  social  legislation  and  the  relief 
given  to  the  unavoidable  suffering  of  groups  of  people 
will  be  exceptional  ;  but  it  is  moral  and  practically 
justifiable,  if  not  imperative,  on  the  ground  that  the 
community  at  large,  and  even  future  generations, 
will  benefit  by  the  introduction  of  the  improvements 
which  necessarily  cause  temporary  individual  suffer- 
ing. To  give  but  one  definite  instance  :  The  un- 
doubted blessing  which  motor  traffic  has  bestowed 


316  ETHICS 

upon  mankind  has  necessarily  brought  suffering  and 
misery  to  groups  of  people  entirely  dependent  upon 
the  superseded  means  of  transport,  while  it  has  also 
caused  discomfort  to  the  mass  of  the  population. 
It  was  but  right  that  all  efforts  should  have  been  made, 
on  the  one  hand,  to  support  the  cabmen  and  others 
who  live  by  horse  traffic  during  the  period  when 
these  new  inventions  forcibly  deprived  them  of  the 
very  means  of  subsistence  ;  while,  on  the  other  hand, 
public  effort  ought  at  once  to  have  been  directed 
towards  securing  the  lives  of  pedestrians  threatened 
by  the  new  invention  and  the  danger  to  health  and 
comfort  caused  by  the  production  of  dust  on  the 
roads. 

"  But  these  separate  duties,  called  into  being  by 
the  improvement  of  production  and  the  expansion 
of  human  skill  and  activity,  in  no  way  diminish  the 
absolute  duty  to  further  such  improvement  and  to 
concentrate  the  energy  which  man  should  bring  to 
the  perfecting  of  his  work  as  such.  Our  supreme 
duty  to  things  and  acts  remains  ;  and  we  must 
act  thus,  not  so  much  on  grounds  of  human  altruism, 
not  as  social  beings  in  our  direct  relation  to  other 
beings  and  our  intercourse  with  them  ;  but  simply 
in  our  relation  to  the  objects  which  we  are  to  produce, 
to  modify,  or  to  effect,  with  a  view  to  making  our 
production  as  perfect  as  possible,  even  if  we  were 
the  only  human  beings  in  the  universe." 

DUTY  TO  GOD 

'  The  duty  to  things  and  actions  necessarily  and 
logically  leads  us  to  the  further  and  final  course  to 
which,  in  the  rising  scale  of  ethical  thought,  they 
tend.  In  man's  ethical  progression  through  human 
functions  as  such,  through  the  objects  which  man 
wishes  to  produce  or  to  modify  in  nature,  he  is  neces- 
sarily led  to  his  ultimate  duties  towards  the  world 
as  a  whole,  not  only  the  world  as  his  senses  and 
perceptions  cause  him  to  realise  it,  as  it  is,  with  all 
the  limitations  which  his  senses  and  his  powers 
impose  upon  him  ;  but  the  world  as  his  best  thought 


DUTY  TO   GOD  317 

and  his  imagination,  guided  by  his  highest  reason, 
lead  him  to  feel  that  it  ought  to  be — his  ideal  world. 
This  brings  him  to  his  duty  towards  his  highest  and 
most  impersonal  ideals  of  an  ordered  universe,  a 
cosmos,  and  of  unlimited  powers  beyond  the  limita- 
tions of  his  capacities — his  duty  to  God.  Ethics  here 
naturally,  logically,  necessarily,  lead  to,  and  cul- 
minate in,  religion. 

"  The  supreme  duty  in  this  final  phase  of  ethics, 
man's  religious  duties,  is  truth  to  his  religious  ideals. 
It  is  here,  more  than  in  any  other  phase  of  his  activi- 
ties, that  there  can  and  ought  to  be  no  compromise. 
This  is  where  he  approaches  the  ideal  world  in  all  its 
purity,  free  from  all  limitations  and  modifications 
by  the  imperfections  of  things  temporal  and  material, 
as  well  as  his  own  erring  senses  and  perceptive 
faculties.  There  are  no  practical  or  social  relationships, 
no  material  ends  to  be  considered,  no  material 
interests  to  be  served  or  advantages  gained.  The 
only  relationship  is  that  between  himself  and  his 
spiritual  powers  and  the  highest  ideals  which  these 
enable  him  to  formulate  and  feel.  His  duty,  there- 
fore, is  to  strive  after  his  highest  ideals  of  harmony, 
power,  truth,  justice,  and  charity.  Nor  does  this 
function  of  the  human  mind  and  this  craving  of  the 
human  heart  require  exceptional  intellectual  power 
or  training.  On  the  contrary,  the  history  of  the 
human  race  has  shown  that  at  every  phase  of  human 
existence,  even  the  earliest  and  most  rudimentary, 
in  the  very  remote  haze  of  prehistoric  times,  the 
presence  of  this  religious  instinct  and  man's  effort 
to  satisfy  it  are  manifested,  even  though  it  neces- 
sarily be  in  the  crudest,  the  most  unintelligent  and 
even  barbarous  forms  of  what  we  call  superstition 
and  idolatry. 

"  Man's  desire  and  every  experience  necessarily 
have  a  religious  concomitant.  At  every  moment  of 
his  conscious  existence  he  is  reminded  of  imperfection 
and  limitation  without,  an  incapacity  within,  himself. 
This  very  consciousness  is  the  mainspring  of  all 
endeavour,  of  all  will-power,  of  all  the  exertion  of 
his  physical  or  mental  capacities.  For  each  con- 


318  ETHICS 

scious  experience,  as  well  as  each  desire  and  effort, 
has,  as  a  counterpart  to  its  limitation,  the  more  or 
less  present  or  complete  consciousness  of  its  perfect 
fulfilment.  Limitation  in  time  and  space  implies 
infinity  ;  limitation  in  power  implies  omnipotence  ; 
limitation  in  knowledge  implies  omniscience ;  in- 
justice, justice  ;  cruelty,  charity.  Even  if  the 
limitation  or  the  incapacity  is  admitted,  and  even 
if  the  tutored  mind  ceases  from  dwelling  upon  it 
as  it  realises  the  impossibility  clearly  to  grasp  and 
to  encompass  the  unlimited  and  relegates  such  fantas- 
tic cravings  to  the  region  of  the  absurd,  through  long 
and  continuous  rationalistic  training  and  habit,  this 
only  confirms  the  correlative  conception  of  infinite 
power.  The  consciousness  that  we  cannot  span  the 
world,  regulate  the  powers  of  nature  according  to 
our  will,  dominate  the  seasons,  and  check  the  course  of 
the  tides — not  to  mention  the  limitations  of  every 
individual  and  commonplace  action  of  ours — implies 
our  conception  of  such  power  and  such  complete 
achievement. 

"  The  higher  our  spiritual  flight  and  the  more 
highly  trained  we  are  through  experience  and  through 
thought  in  the  range  of  our  imagination  and  our 
reason,  the  higher  will  be  our  ideals  of  the  infinite 
and  the  omnipotent.  The  Greek  philosopher  Xeno- 
phanes  said,  many  years  ago,  that  if  lions  could  draw, 
they  would  draw  the  most  perfect  lions  as  their  god, 
and  that  the  god  of  negroes  would  be  flat-nosed  and 
black.  Thus  necessarily  individuals,  the  collective 
groups  of  men,  and  the  different  periods  within  man's 
history  will  all  vary  in  their  capacity  to  approach 
this  conception  of  the  highest  ideals  ;  they  will  differ 
in  their  theology  and  in  their  religion. 

[<  But  their  supreme  duty,  from  an  ethical  point  of 
view,  in  their  attitude  towards  religion,  is  truth. 
They  must  strive  so  to  develop  their  religious  nature 
that  it  responds  to  their  highest  moral  and  intellectual 
capacity.  They  must  not  accept  any  religious  ideal 
that  contradicts  the  rising  scale  of  duties  from  the 
lower  and  narrower  spheres  upwards  as  we  have 
enumerated  them.  All  duties  must  harmonise  and 


RELIGIOUS    IDEALS  319 

culminate  in  the  ultimate  ideals  which  belong  to 
the  religious  sphere.  Credo  quia  impossibile  must 
never  mean  Credo  quia  absurdum.  Man  commits  a 
grave  sin,  perhaps  the  gravest  of  all,  by  lowering 
his  religious  ideals,  by  allowing  himself,  on  whatever 
grounds  of  expediency  and  compromise,  to  vitiate  the 
divine  reason  he  possesses  as  the  highest  gift  in  human 
nature,  and  by  admitting  the  irrational  into  his 
conception  of  the  Divinity. 

"  By  this  I  in  no  way  mean  to  say  that  either 
ethics,  science,  or  art  can  in  any  way  replace  religion  : 
though  in  their  highest  ideal  flights  they  closely  ap- 
proach to  religion,  and  even  merge  into  it.  Of  all 
human  activities  in  science,  pure  mathematics,  which 
deals  with  the  highest  immaterial  relationships,  comes 
nearest  to  the  ideal  sphere  of  theology,  and  indicates 
the  direction  for  religious  emotion  to  take  ;  and  of 
all  the  arts,  pure  music  (not  programme  music), 
unfettered  by  definite  material  objects  and  individual 
experiences  in  the  outer  world,  also  approaches  most 
closely  in  its  tendency  to  some  realisation  of  cosmical 
and  religious  ideals.  We  can  thus  divine  the  depth 
of  effort  manifested  in  the  philosophy  of  Pythagoras, 
who  maintained  that  number  was  the  essence  of  all 
things,  and  who  suggested  the  music  of  the  spheres. 
But  these  are  only  signposts  on  the  high-road  of 
thought,  where  science  and  art  give  lasting  expression 
to  the  onward  and  upward  course  of  human  reason ; 
they  cannot  of  themselves  satisfy  the  religious  instinct 
and  the  religious  craving  of  man  which  draws  him 
onwards  to  his  highest  ideals. 

'  If  science  and  art  cannot  thus  replace  religion, 
ethics,  which  is  directly  and  immediately  practical, 
is  equally  unable  to  do  so.  In  fact,  ethics  must 
culminate  in  religious  ideals.  Man's  duty  towards 
the  perfection  of  his  acts,  to  the  universe  at  large, 
as  we  have  endeavoured  to  indicate  it  above,  logically 
leads  us  to,  and  in  itself  presupposes  and  predemands, 
some  conception  of  a  final,  summary  harmony  to 
which  all  human  activity  tends.  All  our  rational 
and  moral  activity  demands  the  consciousness  of  a 
final  end,  not  in  chaos,  but  in  cosmos  ;  not  irrational, 


320  ETHICS 

but  rational ;  not  evil,  but  good  ;  not  towards  the 
Evil  One,  but  towards  God.  Without  this  infinite 
boundary  to  all  our  thought  and  action,  desires  and 
efforts,  man's  conscious  world  would  not  differ  from 
a  madhouse  or  a  gamblers'  den,  or  a  vast  haunt  of 
vice  and  criminality.  Without  this  upward  idealistic 
impulse  all  conscious  human  activity  would  either 
sink  downward  to  lower  animal  spheres  or  erratically 
whirl  round  and  round  in  drunken  mazes  ;  it  would 
lose  all  guidance  and  ultimate  direction,  and  be  purely 
at  the  mercy  of  fickle  chance  or  relentless  passion 
and  greed. 

"  But  this  upward  idealistic  impulse  itself,  as  a 
lasting  and  denominating  emotion,  must  be  cultivated, 
just  as,  as  we  have  seen  before,  ethics  must  become 
emotional  and  aesthetic  to  be  practically  effective. 
We  have  also  seen  that  each  ethical  injunction  need 
not  be,  and  ought  not  to  be,  consciously  present  in 
the  mind  of  him  who  is  to  act  rightly  ;  for  it  would 
weaken,  if  not  completely  dissolve,  our  will-power 
and  our  active  energy.  It  would  ultimately  lead  to 
the  dreamer  or  the  pedant  who  dreams  while  he 
ought  to  be  awake  and  who  idly  thinks  while  he 
ought  to  act.  The  step  must  be  made  from  the 
intellectual  to  the  emotional  sphere  ;  the  moral 
injunction  ought  to  be  made  part  of  our  emotional 
system  through  habituation  ;  it  must  become  sub- 
conscious, almost  instinctive,  if  not  purely  aesthetic 
— a  matter  of  taste.  Rational  and  efficient  education 
must,  from  our  earliest  infancy,  tend  to  convert  this 
conscious  morality  into  a  subconscious  and  funda- 
mental moral  stage.  We  must  not  rest  on  our  oars 
to  think  while  we  ought  to  be  rowing,  and  risk  being 
carried  away  by  the  unreasoning  current  of  circum- 
stances. 

"  Still  there  will  be  moments  when  we  must  thus 
rest  on  our  oars,  when  we  must  set  the  house  in  which 
we  live  in  order,  when  we  must  ponder  over  and  test 
the  broad  principles  upon  which  we  act.  We  must  then 
bring  into  harmony  and  proportion  the  ascending  scale 
of  duties,  regulating  the  lower  by  the  higher  in  due 
subordination  and  discarding  the  lower  that  will 


AESTHETIC   INCENTIVES   TO   RELIGION     321 

not  bear  the  final  test  of  the  higher,  until  we  reach 
the  crown  of  human  existence  in  our  religious  ideals. 
"  But  in  all  this  idealistic  ascent  we  must  cultivate 
the  passion  for  such  upsoaring  idealism,  and  it  is  in 
our  final  religious  impulses  that  the  emotional,  nay, 
the  mystical,  element  must  itself  be  nurtured  and 
cultivated.  Without  this  crown  of  life,  life  will  always 
be  imperfect.  The  striving  for  the  infinite,  which 
cannot  be  apprehended  and  reduced  to  intellectual 
formulae,  must  itself  be  strengthened  and  encouraged 
in  the  young  and  through  every  phase  of  our  life 
onward  to  the  grave.  Let  us  see  that  these  ideals 
are  not  opposed  to  our  highest  reason  and  truth  as 
far  as  we  have  been  able  to  cultivate  these  in  ourselves. 
But  whether  our  ultimate  intellectual  achievement 
and  our  grasp  of  truth  be  high  or  low,  we  cannot 
forgo  the  cultivation  and  strengthening  of  our 
religious  emotions.  Whoever  believes  in  the  dog- 
matic teaching  of  any  of  the  innumerable  sects  and 
creeds  that  now  exist,  truthfully  and  with  the  depth 
of  his  conviction,  let  him  cling  to  that  creed  and  the 
usages,  rites,  and  ceremonies  of  the  church  or  chapel, 
synagogue,  mosque,  graves,  or  sacred  shrines  and 
haunts  in  which  his  religious  emotions  are  fed  and 
strengthened.  But,  if  he  does  not  truthfully  believe 
in  the  creed  and  dogmas,  he  must  not  subscribe  to 
them,  or  he  will  be  committing  the  supreme  sin  against 
his  best  self,  *  against  the  Holy  Ghost.'  But  for 
those,  however,  whose  religious  ideals  cannot  be 
compassed  or  bettered  by  any  dogmatic  creed  that 
is  now  established  and  recognised,  let  them  not  forgo 
the  cultivation  of  their  religious  emotions,  which, 
as  both  past  experience  and  all  active  reasoning 
teach  us,  must  be  created  and  strengthened  by  emo- 
tional setting,  by  an  atmosphere  removed  from  the 
absorbing,  interested  activities  of  daily  life. 

'  The  question  for  these  people  is,  where  and  how 
can  religious  emotion  thus  be  encouraged  and  culti- 
vated ?  It  seems  to  me  that  there  are  two  possible 
methods  by  which  this  crying  demand  can  be  re- 
sponded to  :  either  in  the  domestic  sphere  within  the 
family,  or  within  the  churches  themselves,  amid 
22 


322  ETHICS 

the  religious  associations  of  the  past  and  the  religious 
atmosphere  which  is  essential  to  them. 

"  As  regards  the  home  and  the  family  as  the  centre 
for  religious  worship,  some  indication  of  the  direction 
which  such  a  domestic  and  religious  cult  might  take 
can  be  derived  from  Japanese  ancestor-worship,  which 
is  so  vital  and  so  potent  an  element  in  the  life  of 
that  people.  As  has  been  pointed  out  by  Nobushige 
Hozumi,1  Japanese  ancestor-worship  can  coexist 
with  any  variety  of  religious  beliefs,  doctrines,  and 
creeds.  For  us,  it  has  in  its  turn  become  stereotyped 
in  its  formal  ritual  to  such  a  degree  that  it  could 
never  be  accepted  in  its  actual  form  by  those  who 
brought  unbiased  criticism  to  bear  upon  its  binding 
injunctions.  But  the  essential  fact  in  its  ritual, 
that  it  establishes  within  each  family  and  each  house- 
hold a  sacred  chamber  or  altar,  of  itself  sanctified 
by  piety  and  gratitude  towards  our  ancestors,  and 
thus  effectively  upholding  the  family  spirit,  the  family 
honour,  with  common  strivings  towards  higher  moral 
and  ideal  ends  ;  furthermore,  that  it  becomes  the 
natural  focus  for  solemn  gatherings  and  lends  spiritual 
elevation  by  association  and  emotional  stimulus  to 
the  silent  prayer  of  the  individual  or  the  collective 
worship  of  the  whole  family — these  elements  make  of 
it  the  fit  local  and  physical  setting  for  religious  com- 
munion or  for  silent  self-communion  or  prayer  when 
the  individual  desires  to  establish  his  solemn  relation- 
ship with  his  highest  ideals. 

11  Beyond  this  domestic  and  family  sphere,  how- 
ever, we  possess  in  every  country  the  churches  and 
shrines  associated  with  definite  beliefs  in  the  present 
and  with  continuous  religious  aspirations  for  centuries 
in  the  past.  Not  only  these  associations,  but  the 
aesthetic  qualities  in  the  architecture  and  decorative 
art  within  and  without,  possessed  by  so  many,  make 
them  the  most  suitable  places  for  man's  spiritual 
devotion.  If  the  guardians  of  these  sacred  buildings 
admit,  as  they  must,  that  religious  aspirations  and 
desires  are  in  themselves  good  ;  that  it  is  better  for 
those  who  differ  from  them  in  creed  to  have  some 

1  Ancestor- Worship  and  Japanese  Law  (1913). 


CONCLUSION,   ETHOGRAPHY  323 

religion,  and  that  they  should  cultivate  their  religious 
aspirations  rather  than  that  they  should  have  no 
religion  at  all  and  drift  through  life  without  any  such 
higher  striving,  they  will  surely  lend  a  hand  to  support 
their  brethren  in  their  highest  efforts,  even  if  they 
differ  from  them  in  form  and  creed.  Let  us  hope  that 
all  our  churches  and  religious  buildings  will  at  certain 
definite  times,  when  not  required  for  the  special 
worship  to  which  they  are  dedicated,  open  their  doors 
to  those  holding  different  views.  These  buildings 
ought  in  the  future,  even  more  than  at  present,  to 
become  the  centres  of  purest  art,  graphic  or  musical. 
These  fellow-strivers  may  then  receive  the  inestimable 
benefit  of  some  stimulation  in  their  endeavours  silently 
to  commune  with  their  highest  ideals,  to  pray,  to 
think,  or  to  feel,  and  to  cultivate  their  truly  religious 
spiritual  emotions." 


CONCLUSION,   ETHOGRAPHY 

Now,  we  must  bear  clearly  in  mind  that  these 
subdivisions  of  ethical  actions  and  the  standards 
of  conduct  which  they  establish  are  not  absolute, 
but  relative.  They  change  with  the  evolution  of  man, 
of  his  mind,  and  of  his  social  and  natural  surroundings. 
New  ones  arise,  unheard  or  unthought  of  before  ; 
old  ones  become  obsolete  ;  and  many,  if  not  most, 
change  and  must  be  modified  in  varying  degrees. 
The  ideas  of  honesty,  of  honour,  of  sex  morality, 
etc.,  etc.,  are  thus  in  constant  flux.  In  law,  in 
contradistinction  to  ethics,  the  chief  function  of  the 
legislative  body  in  all  parliamentary  and  democratic 
States  is  thus  to  create  new  laws  responding  to  the 
new  life,  to  supersede  old  ones,  or  to  modify  them. 
But  in  ethics  this  has  not  been  so,  certainly  not  to 
anything  approaching  the  same  degree,  nor  has  it 
been  recognised  in  the  systematic  study  of  ethics 
that  the  chief  aim  is  consciously  to  recognise  this 
evolution  and  to  convert  fatalistic  change  into 


324  ETHICS 

designed  progress.  We  still  are  limited  and  bound 
down  to  the  older  dogmas  and  conditions  concerning 
life.  The  great  task  before  us  is  to  lay  down  adequate 
new  laws  of  moral  conduct.  We  must  establish  for 
our  own  period  and  for  the  immediate  future  such  a 
code  of  standard  morals  and  the  ideal  of  the  perfect 
man — the  gentleman.  But  here  again,  above  all, 
we  must  fix  these  in  the  clearest  contemporary 
language.  Even  in  this  most  effective  vehicle  for 
conveying  meanings  the  task  will  always  remain 
a  supremely  arduous  one.  We  must  not  therefore 
translate  our  meaning  into  the  language  of  other 
periods  and  schools  of  thought.  In  such  a  process 
much  is  lost  or  overlooked  on  the  way,  and  the  road 
itself  is  blocked  by  obscurity.  Through  Conscious 
Evolution,  having  clearly  before  us  and  above  us 
the  Best  towards  which  we  tend,  we  must  harmonise, 
as  far  as  in  us  lies,  the  Actual  with  the  Best.  This  is 
the  duty  in  every  period  for  every  corporate  body 
united  by  language,  manners,  customs,  traditions  and 
ideals.  Only  thus  is  there  any  hope  for  the  success 
of  conscious  evolution — for  Progress. 

Into  all  these  several  departments,  thoroughly 
systematised,  the  study  of  ethics  must  enter  in  the 
spirit  and  with  the  methods  of  exact  observational 
and  even  experimental  science.  We  must  no  longer 
be  satisfied  with  single  deduction  or  misleading 
individual  introspection  from  first  principles,  estab- 
lished in  metaphysics  or  religion  as  dogmas,  nor  with 
merelypsychological  deductions  from  the  human  mind; 
but  we  must  also  consider  the  mind  in  its  relation 
to  its  social  surroundings  and  with  a  definite  aim,  the 
perfecting  of  the  social  body  itself.  The  methods 
applied  must  be  inductive,  conscientiously  observa- 
tional and  experimental.  We  must  guard  against 
turning  these  methods  into  pragmatical  channels  and 
thereby  diverting  them  from  their  purely  scientific 


EUGENICS,    NOT   GENETICS  325 

course.  We  must  not  exclusively  or  predominantly 
consider  the  mere  physical  needs  of  life  or  the  economi- 
cal or  political  motives  and  ends  which  have  their 
place  in  due  proportion  and  in  organic  relationship 
to  the  whole  of  life.  The  established  theories  of 
physical  evolution  in  genetics,  as  well  as  in  political 
economy,  as  in  the  conception  of  the  State  in  the 
science  of  Politics,  are  not  sufficient  by  themselves 
correctly  to  guide  us  in  the  establishment  of  these 
standards,1  and  when  thus  regarded  purely  by  them- 
selves are  fundamentally  misleading. 

As  yet  such  a  widely  recognised  development 
of  ethical  study  does  not  exist,  while  most  of  the 
energies  of  the  best  thinkers  who  have  devoted 
themselves  to  ethics  are  concerned  with  the  dis- 
cussion of  the  primary  principles  of  aesthetics,  if 
not  in  a  purely  metaphysical,  at  any  rate  in  a  pre- 
dominantly psychological  spirit.  All  the  light  which 
each  department  of  human  thought  can  throw  upon 
these  vital  problems  of  human  life  must  be  appealed  to 
and  co-ordinated  in  its  due  place  and  proportion  ; 
but  in  our  outlook  upon  these  great  problems 
we  should  aim  at  first  establishing  the  actual 
standards  of  morality  in  exact  and  thoroughly 
verified  detail,  and  thence  to  advance  to  the  establish- 
ment of  higher  standards  to  give  direction  to  the  best 
life  that  is  to  be.  Not  genetics  only,  but  eugenics 
in  the  best  sense  of  the  term  ;  not  economy,  but  the 
proper  spending,  as  well  as  the  production  of  wealth 
and  our  duties  in  adding  to  it  ;  not  politics  and  only 
those  aspects  of  life  which  concern  the  growth  of 
power  and  prosperity  in  the  State,  but  the  full  and 
highest  life  of  civilised  society  and  the  production  of 
the  most  perfect  human  being. 

Each  of  the  several  departments  of  duties  which  we 
have  enumerated  must  thus  be  focussed  from  the 

1  Cf.  Eugenics,  Civics,  and  Ethics. 


326  ETHICS 

point  of  view  of  pure  scientific  inquiry.  So  strongly 
have  I  felt  the  need  of  such  a  new  departure  in 
scientific  ethics  that  I  have  proposed  l  to  substitute  for 
the  term  Ethics  the  term  Ethography  to  indicate 
this  distinctive  treatment  of  the  subject.8 

The  chief  work  of  the  ethographer  will  thus  be  to 
inquire  into  the  actual  standards  of  the  existing  duties 
that  can  be  recognised  and  grouped  within  our  com- 
plex life  and  the  different  degrees  of  certainty  or 
finality  attached  to  each.  A  wide  sphere  of  inquiry 
and  discussion  will  thus  be  opened  out  to  the  special 
students,  and  if  the  best  minds  are  concentrated 
upon  such  an  effort  the  results  will  in  the  aggregate 
be  of  the  highest.  No  doubt  there  will  be  much 
discussion  and  great  differences  of  opinion.  Nor  can 
we  in  any  science  hope  for  absolute  agreement,  which, 
if  it  were  readily  obtainable,  would  almost  make 
scientific  inquiry  superfluous.  Not  only  concerning 
the  establishment  of  each  separate  standard  will 
there  be  considerable  divergence  of  opinion,  inviting 
full  inquiry  and  leading  to  valuable  results  ;  but 
also  in  the  relative  value  of  what  we  have  called 
the  progression  of  duties  in  their  relation  to  one 
another,  there  will  be  opened  a  much  needed  field  of 
serious  examination,  ending  in  actual  practical  benefit 
to  the  course  of  social  life  as  a  whole  and  also  to 
the  individual.  What  has  long  since  been  called 
casuistics  will  be  fully  revived,  only  not  with  the  hair- 
splitting methods  and  tricks  of  the  schoolmen  and 
their  followers.  It  may  even  be  found — and  this  will 
become  a  most  fruitful  source  of  ethical  information 
—that  not  only  various  periods  but  various  countries 

1  Cf.  Eugenics,  Civics,  and  Ethics. 

«  I  have  wavered  in  the  choice  of  the  terms  Ethography  and 
Ethology.  The  latter  had  in  its  favour,  that  logia  of  itself  connotes 
thoroughness  of  ratiocinative  process.  But  Ethography  lays  more 
stress  upon  sober  classification  of  ethical  standards  in  each  period,  and 
this  is  the  point  I  desire  especially  to  emphasise. 


NEW   SUBJECTS    FOR   INQUIRY  327 

and  even  localities  will  differ  among  each  other  as 
regards  their  several  standards.  The  result  of  such 
comparative  study  will  be  of  great  practical  and  far- 
reaching  benefit  to  all  concerned,  but  especially 
to  the  body  of  ethography  itself,  and  would  lead  in- 
ductively to  ultimate  principles  of  ethics  commanding 
the  widest  validity  in  all  individual  cases.  Such 
inquiries  must  decidedly  not  be  limited  to  the  most 
general  aspects  of  ethics  and  conduct,  but  must  adapt 
themselves  to,  respond  to,  and  be  the  outcome  of, 
the  actual  diversity,  complexity  and  fullness  of 
modern  life.  Thus,  not  only  the  general  question  of 
the  relation  between  justice  and  charity  must  be 
considered,  but  the  aspect  and  concrete  manifesta- 
tions of  this  relationship  in  private  and  in  institu- 
tional life  in  modern  communities.  The  whole  subject 
of  commercial  morality,  the  standards'  prevailing  in 
each  of  the  trades  and  of  individual  trades  among 
each  other ;  hand-to-hand  barter  in  a  small  way  and 
great  international  commerce  and  finance  on  the 
largest  scale  ;  professional  morality  in  all  its  several 
aspects  ;  truthfulness,  scientific  truthfulness,  social 
truthfulness,  truthfulness  to  self ;  duties  to  the  State, 
political  morality  of  the  citizen  and  of  the  govern- 
ments ,  national  and  international  patriotism  and 
their  relation  to  one  another,  etc.,  etc. — all  these,  and 
many  more  which  need  not  here  be  enumerated  in 
detail,  will  arise,  be  classified,  and  inquired  into.  In 
their  consequent  field  of  inquiry  would  enter  the 
search  for  the  etiology  of  such  group-differences 
compared  among  themselves  as  they  are,  both  with 
regard  to  their  origin,  comparative  differences,  and 
the  causes  in  the  evolution  of  the  past  which  have 
produced  them.  Why,  for  instance,  one  age,  one 
district,  or  one  occupation  or  class  takes  a  definite 
view  differing  from  another  ;  why  one  country  and 
one  people  differs  from  the  other— the  mountaineers 


328  ETHICS 

from  the  dwellers  in  the  plain,  those  brought  up  in 
different  religious  creeds  and  atmospheres  (the  Irish 
compared  with  the  English  as  regards  truthfulness)  ; 
race-history  of  the  Jews,  Scottish  religion  and  the 
Church  of  England,  etc. 

A  whole  new  sphere  of  scientific  inquiry  in  most 
manifold  and  varied  directions  is  opened  out  to 
us.  But  such  observation,  sifting,  and  weighing  of 
facts  are  not  enough.  The  whole  sphere  of  experi- 
mental inquiry  must  be  explored.  Mute  nature  and 
matter  and  dumb  animals  require  for  experiment 
material  treatment  which  produces  results  determined 
directly  by  our  senses  of  sight,  hearing,  touch,  smell 
and  taste.  But  man  has,  after  all,  the  gift  of  language. 
Experiment  need  therefore  not  be  more  subjective 
and  inexact — on  the  contrary,  it  can  conceivably  be 
made  still  more  exact.  Experiment  in  the  case  of 
ethography  must  be  on  the  lines  of  statistics  in  which, 
however,  numbers  do  not  exclude  qualitative  differ- 
ence in  values  of  evidence,  and  must  be  weighed  by 
more  complex,  but  none  the  less  careful,  methods  of 
investigation.  To  ascertain  these  collective  standards 
inquiries  must  be  sent  out  in  a  large  number  of 
instances,  examined  and  tabulated.  At  a  very  early 
stage  the  comparative  method  must  be  introduced 
in  weighing  the  quality  of  the  different  data.  Thus 
(i)  different  occupations,  professions  and  vocations 
must  be  consulted  to  elicit  opinions  and  definite  points 
on  the  problems  proposed,  and  instances  carefully 
chosen  by  the  inquirer  as  regards  their  bearing  on  the 
fundamental  ethical  principles.  The  same  procedure 
must  be  followed  (ii)  with  different  classes  ;  and  (iii) 
with  different  districts  ;  and  (iv)  with  different 
countries.  Out  of  the  differences  which  might  thus 
be  recognised  much  important  light  would  be  thrown 
on  national  and  group  psychology,  as  well  as  on  the 
effective  power  of  such  differences  in  modifying  ethical 


RESULTANT    STANDARDS   OF   MORALITY  329 

character  and  activity.  Out  of  still  more  compre- 
hensive study  of  all  these  variants  together  we  may 
finally  hope  for  widely  valid,  if  not  absolute,  principles 
of  the  general  ethical  standards  in  each  age. 

Having  thus  recognised  and  fixed  the  standards 
that  are  current  for  the  period  in  which  we  live,  the 
final  task  for  the  serious  inquirer,  the  master  of  this 
subject,  the  ethographer,  is  to  establish  the  most 
necessary  or  desirable  standards  for  his  time  and 
to  reach  up  to  the  higher  standards  for  the  future, 
pointing  out  how  the  environing  conditions  of  life 
ought  to  be  changed  to  attain  such  distant  goals. 
But  here  again,  not  in  vague  and  unjustified  generalisa- 
tion, but  within  definite  aspects  and  rules  of  conduct. 
So,  for  instance,  in  our  first  subdivision,  the  modifica- 
tions in  the  complexities  and  varied  relationships  of 
modern  family  life  will  have  to  be  studied,  and  the 
duties  of  parents  to  children,  as  well  as  of  chil- 
dren to  parents  and  of  married  people  to  one  another, 
will  have  to  be  considered — considered,  moreover, 
in  their  relation  to  the  self-development  of  each,  to 
the  wider  duties  they  each  may  have  to  the  State,  to 
the  community  in  which  they  live,  and,  finally,  to  the 
ideals  of  social  life.  The  same  can  be  said  for  every 
other  definite  department  of  life,  in  most  of  which 
at  present  innumerable  and  divergent  Opinions  exist 
absolutely  unco-ordinated,  so  that  no  general  standard 
can  be  recognised  for  the  age  in  which  we  live  ;  and 
in  consequence,  adults  act  uncontrolled  by  valid 
standards  according  to  their  leading  instinct,  or  even 
the  impulse  of  the  moment.  Children  grow  up  either 
without  any  ethical  teaching  and  convictions  of  their 
own,  or  with  moral  teaching  from  bygone  ages  which 
fails  to  apply  to  the  actual  conditions  and  needs  of 
modern  life.  Surely  the  future  must  remedy  this 
disease  of  to-day,  perhaps  the  most  maleficent  virus 
poisoning  the  existence  of  modern  man,  individual, 


330  ETHICS 

national  and  international.  I  hold  with  solemnly 
conscientious  conviction  that  the  fundamental  cause 
of  all  the  misery  culminating  in  the  Great  War 
(though  in  other  spheres  of  human  effort  we  have 
reached  comparatively  so  great  a  height  of  civilisa- 
tion and  culture)  is  to  be  found  in  the  absence  of  true 
morals,  fully  responsive  to  the  best  thoughts  in  us, 
as  well  as  of  a  religion  which  holds  before  us  the 
convincing  ideals  of  an  all-perfect  supernatural 
world. 

Meanwhile,  having  studied  the  conditions  which 
have  produced  the  "  Laws  of  Evolution,"  the  etho- 
grapher  must  aim  at  guiding  and  modifying  the  con- 
ditions by  conscious  reason  and  effort,  so  that,  adapt- 
ing them  to  the  needs  of  each  age,  they  should  lead 
towards  the  best  type  of  man  and  the  best  life. 


CHAPTER   V 

POLITICS 

The  best  State  is  the  one  which  produces  the  best  and  happiest 
citizens. 

To  defend  the  weak  ;   to  restrain  the  strong  ;   to  encourage  the  best. 

A  State  possesses  the  best  constitution  in  the  degree  in  which, 
while  safeguarding  the  equal  rights  of  all  its  citizens,  it  prepares, 
ensures,  facilitates  and  accelerates  the  Rule  of  the  Best. 

La  plus  parfaite  soci6t£  humaine  est  celle  dans  laquelle  la  qualit6 
doit  prevaloir  en  tout. 

Liberte",  Fraternity,  Inegalit6. 

Liberty  to  establish  just  authority  and  right  discipline. 

IN  dealing  with  Politics  we  must  be  ever  conscious 
that  we  are  not  considering  the  subject  from  the 
point  of  view  of  Pure  Science  or  Epistemology ;  as  a 
single  department  or  "  discipline  "  of  the  vast  field 
of  inquiry,  our  attitude  is  not  purely  theoretical, 
but  practical.  As  in  the  case  of  Art,  Pragmatics,  and 
Ethics,  we  are  not  dealing  only  with  "  things  as  they 
are,"  but  chiefly  with  "  things  as  they  ought  to  be." 
Moreover,  we  are  here  endeavouring  to  reduce  the 
phenomena  and  the  methods  of  each  department 
with  which  we  deal,  down  to  what  we  have  recognised 
as  the  fundamental  principles  of  the  mind,  i.e.  the 
harmoniotropic  and  aristotropic  instincts.  There- 
fore, however  conscientious  and  sober  we  must  strive 
to  be  in  dealing  with  any  facts  and  data  on  which  we 
found  our  generalisations  and  conclusions,  and  how- 
ever clear  and  thorough  may  be  our  confirmation 
of  these  facts  and  the  origin  of  the  data  with  which 
we  deal,  we  are  consciously  and  ultimately  endeavour- 
ing to  ascertain  and  to  establish  things  of  the  mind 
and  of  life  as  they  ought  to  be,  the  perfect  conditions 

331 


332  POLITICS 

in  which  the  human  mind  and  human  conduct  can 
regulate  these  phenomena  of  life  in  order  to  establish 
the  Best.  We  are  thus  not  merely,  or  even  chiefly, 
concerned  with  ascertaining  how  the  modern  State 
grew  up,  how  it  became  what  it  is  ;  how  originally 
it  was  based  upon  the  family  and  the  family  hearth  ; 
the  clan  or  tribe  or  race,  the  city,  State,  monarchy, 
etc.,  etc.,  until  we  reach  the  modern  democratic 
State  and  Federation  or  confederation  of  States, 
all  with  their  geographical,  local  boundaries,  their 
unity  or  complexity  of  language,  law  and  customs. 
Our  inquiry  does  not  end  with  the  study  of  the 
complex  political  bodies  of  modern  times  and  the  clear 
recognition  of  their  origin  in  the  past  nor  with  the 
establishment  of  "  laws  of  political  evolution,"  in 
which  we  may  recognise  the  "  survival  of  the  fittest/' 
so  that  every  successive  phase  of  the  evolution  might 
be  considered  ipso  facto  "  to  be  the  fittest/'  and  that 
"  what  is  "  because  it  is,  is  therefore  also  "  the  ought 
to  be."  In  one  word,  we  do  not  hold  that  to  account 
for  the  existence  of  a  thing  or  a  human  institution  is 
also  to  justify  its  existence.  But  we  must  recognise, 
above  all,  that  we  are,  in  matters  which  result  from 
conscious  action,  in  the  sphere  of  "  conscious 
evolution  "  and  not  of  "  fatalistic  evolution."  Recog- 
nising all  these  happenings  and  the  laws  which  govern 
them,  we  must  learn  by  them  and  bring  before 
our  imagination,  directed  by  reason  and  guided  by 
the  harmoniotropic  instinct,  the  best  forms,  which 
will  provide  the  best  surrounding  conditions  in  the 
direction  of  reason  and  morality,  so  as  to  create  the 
best  State  with  the  most  perfect  principles  of  govern- 
ment, and  we  are  urged  on  to  this  supreme  effort 
by  the  aristotropic  instinct. 

The  State,  as  we  have  recognised  before,  consists 
of  men  who  derive  their  right  of  physical  and  moral 
existence  not  from  the  State.  As  with  some  Greek 


THE   BEST   STATE  333 

philosophers,  such  a  theory  led  in  Germany  to  the 
intellectual  and  moral  justification  of  militarism  and 
autocracy,  to  that  form  of  politics  and  ethics  which, 
under  the  term  Politismus,  made  of  the  State  the  final 
religious,  if  not  supernatural,  principle  for  all  human 
conduct.  The  history  of  the  State  is  the  history  of 
the  people  who  made  it,  its  changes  marking  the 
development  of  the  people.  The  modifications  which 
it  undergoes  in  the  course  of  time  are  caused  by  the 
people  who  live  the  better  lives  ;  and  the  changes  in 
these  lives  reflect  the  development  of  the  best  men 
who  live  them.  It  is  the  largest  corporate  body  of 
human  beings  as  yet  established,  though  not  the  ulti- 
mate body  which  we  can,  and  ought  to,  conceive. 

The  Best  State,  therefore,  is  the  one  most  favourable 
to  the  production  of  the  best  human  beings,  enabling 
them  to  live  their  best  lives  ;  and  as  human  beings 
advance  and  progress,  so  will  the  State  advance.  In 
so  far,  politics  ultimately  depend  upon  ethics.1  The 
well-known  saying  that  every  nation  has  the  govern- 
ment it  deserves  conveys  a  deep  and  fundamental 
truth.  The  problem  still  remains  :  What  is  the  most 
perfect  man,  and  what  constitutes  his  best  life  ?  Here 
we  may  find  ourselves  in  a  vicious  circle,  for,  if  the 
best  man  is  measured  simply  by  the  standard  of  his 
fitness  for  the  security  and  aggrandisement  of  the 
State  to  which  he  belongs,  his  efforts  must  be  directed 
towards  militarism,  making  a  religion  of  Politismus, 
as  the  aim  of  the  State  as  a  unit  must  be  its  own 
growth  in  power  ;  establishing  an  over-State  for  all 
others,  as  in  private  life  the  superman  is  to  domi- 
nate his  fellow-beings.  Ultimately,  therefore,  the 
problem  of  the  Best  State  (Politics)  rests  upon  our 
conception  of  the  Best  Man  (Ethics).  The  ideal  of 
man  must  precede  the  ideal  of  the  State  and  of 
society.  There  exists  no  gigantic,  monstrous,  living 

1  See  Eugenics,  Civics,  and  Ethics. 


334  POLITICS 

and  organic  being  for  whom  nations  and  individuals 
are  but  subsidiary  functional  organs  and  atoms, 
whose  right  of  existence  and  whose  object  of  existence 
is  solely  to  contribute  to  the  growth  of  the  Monster. 
Such  is  distinctly  not  our  conception  of  Ethics,  of 
the  nature  of  man  and  of  human  life. 

If  the  Best  State  is  thus  the  one  which  is  most 
favourable  to  the  production  of  the  best  men  in  order 
that  they  may  live  their  best  lives,  it  becomes  this 
by  the  action  of  its  Government,  its  Constitution  ; 
for  corporate  bodies  cannot  exist  under  individual 
licence,  but  by  general  rules  and  laws  regulating 
corporate  existence. 

The  first  definite  object  and  task  of  Politics  is  to 
define  the  best  form  of  government.  It  is  not  a 
mere  platitude — especially  in  our  own  days — that 
those  ought  to  govern  who  are  best  suited  for  the 
task. 

Socrates,1  in  that  forcible  form  of  his  homely 
illustration,  has  confirmed  this  fundamental  principle 
with  convincing  directness  : 

"  And  that  he  spoke  the  truth,  he  thus  proved. 
For,  he  said,  let  us  consider,  if  anyone  not  really 
a  good  flute-player  should  wish  to  be  thought  so, 
what  must  he  do  ?  would  he  not  imitate  really  good 
flute-players,  in  all  the  external  equipments  of  their 
art  ?  .  .  .  but  never  should  attempt  a  public  exhibition 
of  skill,  or  straightway  he  would  be  detected  to  be  a 
fit  object  of  ridicule  and  not  only  to  be  a  wretched 
flute-player  but  also  a  vain  boaster.  And  yet, 
after  his  large  expense,  while  he  is  not  a  whit  benefited, 
and  moreover  has  acquired  an  infamous  notoriety, 
must  he  not  live  laboriously,  uselessly,  and  ridicu- 
lously ? 

"  And  in  the  same  way,  if  anyone,  not  being  skilled 
in  strategy  or  in  pilotage,  would  wish  to  be  thought  so, 
let  us  consider  what  would  be  the  natural  result  to  him. 

1  Xenophon,  Memorabilia,  bk.  i,  ch.  vii,  2-5  ;   bk.  iii,  ch.  iv,  12. 


GOVERNMENT    BY   THE   BEST  335 

.  .  .  For  it  is  clear  that  an  unskilful  person,  if  he  were 
appointed  to  steer  a  vessel  or  conduct  an  army, 
would  both  lead  to  destruction  those  whom  least  of 
all  he  wished  and  also  -would  have  to  retreat  in 
disgrace  and  evil  plight. 

"...  But  the  greatest  impostor  he  pronounced  him 
to  be  who,  really  being  worthless,  deceived  the  State 
by  representing  that  he  was  fully  capable  to  guide 
the  city." 

"  Do  not,  Nikomachides,  despise  these  men  skilled 
in  household  management  ;  for  the  care  of  private 
property  differs  from  that  of  public  only  in  amount, 
while  it  has  all  else  exactly  similar  :  but  what  is  most 
important,  neither  is  managed  without  men,  nor  are 
private  affairs  managed  by  men  of  one  nature  and 
public  affairs  by  those  of  another  ;  for  managers  of 
public  matters  command  men  not  differing  in  nature 
from  those  whom  managers  of  private  affairs  command, 
and  they  who  know  how  properly  to  manage  them 
successfully  conduct  matters  whether  public  or 
private  ;  but  those  who  know  not  how,  commit 
errors  in  both." 

Though  all  will  admit  this  truism,  history  has  amply 
proved  that  power  once  conferred  upon  an  individual 
or  a  class  has  an  inherent  tendency  to  confirm  itself 
in  the  associative  regions  or  grooves  where  in  time 
it  has  been  established,  and  that  thus,  by  heredity, 
by  descent  from  the  wielder  of  power,  or  by  descent 
from  association  of  class,  it  leads  to  the  establish- 
ment of  authority  and  privilege,  fixed,  not  by  the 
fitness  to  govern  in  those  who  may  receive  it,  but  by 
the  accident  of  birth  and  descent.  Power  may  thus 
run  counter  to  the  free  development  of  individual  life, 
and  disfavour  the  production  of  the  best  man  within 
the  community,  while  it  may  fail  to  select  for  power 
the  man  most  fitted  to  govern.  In  one  word,  liberty 
is  oppressed  by  privilege.  Practically,  the  changes, 
fluctuations  and  conflicts  in  the  inner  political  history 
of  communities  in  bygone  ages  are  the  record  of  the 


336  POLITICS 

conflict  of  these  two  forces,  Liberty  and  Authority, 
Equality  of  Opportunity  and  Privilege.  In  modern 
times  (though  the  constitutional  history  of  England 
is  itself  a  full  and  living  illustration  of  this  conflict 
and  the  resulting  adjustments)  the  eighteenth  century, 
especially  in  France,  has  marked  the  essential  change 
in  political  principles  by  inaugurating  the  full 
recognition  of  man's  rights  to  liberty  and  the  re- 
moval of  that  form  of  privilege  resting  purely  on 
heredity. 

The  new  democratic  era  is  ushered  in  by  the  watch- 
word "  Liberte",  Egalite',  FraterniteV' 

Now,  it  is  round  the  ideas,  the  basal  principles, 
implied  by  each  of  these  three  words,  their  fusion  into 
one  leading  idea,  and  their  just  relation  and  balance 
to  one  another,  that  not  only  the  political  theories 
of  modern  times  have  differed  from  one  another  and 
struggled  for  conciliation,  but  that  the  social,  moral, 
and  economic,  as  well  as  the  political,  life  of  modern 
States  are  divided  in  their  leading  principles  and 
even  stand  opposed  to  one  another  in  conflict. 

FRATERNITY 

The  third  element  in  this  epigrammatic  trilogy, 
which  summarises  the  leading  principles  of  modern 
political  life,  Fraternity,  cannot  arouse  difference 
of  opinion  or  controversy.  It  connotes  the  fraternal 
relationship  among  all  men,  true  humanity  and 
humaneness,  the  spirit  of  charity,  symbolised  in  the 
religious  form  for  the  whole  world  by  Christ  and 
admitted  by  all  sane  and  moral  men  whether  they 
profess  any  of  the  established  religions  or  not.  I 
cannot  believe  that  even  those  who  accept  the  most  ex- 
treme and  brutal  conclusions  drawn  from  Nietzsche's  l 
theory  of  the  Superman  (based  upon  a  misconception 

1  Cf.  Aristodemocracy,  pt.  ii,  ch.  i,  p.  168  seq. 


FRATERNITY  337 

of  Darwin's  theory  of  the  "  struggle  for  existence  " 
and  the  "  survival  of  the  fittest  ")  will  repudiate  this 
principle  of  human  relationship.  In  spite  of  numerous 
passages  in  Nietzsche's  own  writings,  which  point 
to  the  presence  in  him  of  a  truly  charitable  and  loving 
disposition,  there  still  can  be  no  doubt  that  his  con- 
sistent construction  of  the  Superman,  including  the 
"  blond  beast,"  must  lead  to  the  denial  of  compas- 
sion and  charity.  It  may  perhaps  be  noted  that  in 
political  watchword  Fraternity  follows  Liberty 
and  Equality  ;  and  that  this  sequence  by  itself 
implies  that  fraternity  will  follow  where  there  is 
liberty  and  equality,  but  cannot  exist  and  flourish 
unless  preceded  by  them.  It  is  held  that  the  spirit 
of  fraternity  can  only  enter  into  human  society  if 
in  its  political  organisation  it  ensures  full  scope  to 
the  action  of  liberty  and  is  based  upon  equality. 
This,  in  short,  would  be  a  fair  statement  of  the 
fundamental  outlines  in  the  creed  of  those  who  are 
fully  convinced  of  the  essential  nature  of  this  union  of 
these  three  elements  as  a  guiding  star  to  all  political 
organisation  and  effort.  While  thus  fully  accepting  the 
ideal  of  fraternity,  we  cannot  accept  the  conception 
which  extreme  "  libertarians  "  have  of  liberty,  and  still 
less  do  we  admit  the  validity  of  equality  as  a  leading 
principle  or  ultimate  goal  of  all  political  activities. 

LIBERTY 

The  objection  which  we  before  raised  against  the 
value  of  pragmatism  as  a  principle  in  the  regulation 
of  human  life  and  conduct  applies  in  another  form 
to  the  misconception  of  the  idea  of  liberty.  We  saw 
that  the  pragmatic  attitude  of  mind  made  an  aim  of 
the  means  and  in  so  far  failed  to  give  proper  direction 
to  our  efforts.  It  advanced  and  gave  great  facility 
to  ways  and  means,  but  did  not  provide  the  further 
23 


338  POLITICS 

and  ultimate  aims  and  goals.  Liberty  also  means 
freedom  of  action  and  liberation  from  impediments  and 
restraints  to  the  natural  functioning  of  the  individual 
will. 

1 "  But  liberty  is  not  licence.  '  It  removes  obstacles 
to  ensure  freedom  of  natural  growth  '  ;  but  this 
does  not  mean  that  such  removal  of  obstacles  is  to 
promote  the  rule  of  ignorance,  selfishness  and  law- 
lessness. Liberty  is  a  method,  but  not  an  aim.  It  is, 
in  fact,  the  only  method  through  which  civilised 
society  can  ultimately  attain  its  higher  aims.  It 
ensures  freedom  of  motion  ;  but  this  movement  may 
tend  forward  or  backward,  upward  or  downward,  or 
round  and  round  in  mad  and  senseless  mazes.  Move- 
ment must  therefore  lead  to  a  definite  and  approved 
goal — which  is  the  Best.  The  familiar  antithesis 
between  Liberty  and  Authority,  between  freedom 
of  growth  and  stagnation — or,  at  best,  oscillation— 
the  one  moving,  the  other  fixed,  is  a  false  anti- 
thesis leading  to  the  fatal  fallacy  of  all  political 
theory.  There  are  other  limitations  to  liberty  besides 
authority,  namely,  true  democracy,  which  means  the 
liberty  to  choose  your  authority,  which  again  implies 
a  living  and  moving  process  ;  this  life  and  movement 
constitute  the  history  of  organised  and  civilised 
society,  of  wider  political  bodies,  of  nations  and 
States.  If  the  '  libertarian  '  thinks  of  history  in 
terms  of  progress  and  sees  in  it  a  continuous  removal 
of  hindrances  to  free  life,  while  the  authoritarian 
emphasises  the  coercion  throughout  and  believes 
that  this  changes  its  form  rather  than  its  essence,8 
the  aristodemocrat  sees  in  the  process  of  history 
the  '  libertarian  '  struggle  to  remove  '  authoritarian  ' 
hindrances  to  the  realisation  in  each  period  of  its  ideals 
of  the  best  life,  communal  and  individual. 

'  Thus  liberty  pushed  to  the  extreme  and  by  itself 
leads  to  lawlessness  and  anarchy,  as  authority  leads 
to  autocracy  or  the  rule  of  the  few.  But  democracy 

1  Patriotism,  National  and  International,  p.  xv  seq. 

2  See  G.  Lowes  Dickinson,   The  Choice  before  us,  p.  263.     Many  of 
these  remarks  are  in  criticism  of  the  views  expressed  in  that  book. 


LIBERTY  339 

fills  the  whole  ground  between  them  ;  and  true 
democracy  is  aristodemocracy,  the  liberty  to  choose 
the  best  authority — itself  not  fixed,  but  moving  and 
progressing  with  life.  A  State  possesses  the  best 
constitution  in  the  degree  in  which,  while  safeguarding 
the  equal  rights  of  all  its  citizens,  it  prepares, 
ensures,  facilitates  and  accelerates  the  Rule  of  the 
Best." 

Liberty  can  thus  not  mean  freedom  to  act  badly, 
but  freedom  to  act  well — in  the  interests  of  the  State 
and  in  the  interests  of  the  individuals  composing  it. 
As  a  matter  of  fact,  all  civilised  states,  even  the  most 
democratic,  have  hitherto  recognised  distinct  limita- 
tions to  liberty.  Moreover,  every  act  of  legislation 
and  the  creation  of  new  laws,  in  so  far  as  they 
are  binding  upon  all  citizens,  are  "  limitations  of 
liberty."  Children,  the  insane,  criminals,  have  ever 
been  deprived  of  suffrage,  and,  in  some  cases,  of  civic 
rights.  The  constitutional  changes  in  the  activity 
of  the  British  Legislature  are  chiefly  marked  by  the 
extension  of  the  suffrage.  One  of  the  most  note- 
worthy of  these  extensions  of  political  liberty  is  the 
introduction  of  woman's  suffrage.  With  the  single 
exception  of  the  constitution  of  the  House  of  Lords, 
birth  no  longer  constitutes  a  privilege,  blocking  the 
way  to  full  political  liberty.  This  anachronism  is 
now  likely  to  be  removed  ;  but,  if  "in  a  true 
democracy,  freedom  means  the  liberty  to  choose  the  best 
authority"  and  if  those  who  are  to  be  entrusted  with 
the  business  of  government  are  those  most  fitted  to 
the  task,  it  cannot  act  thus  on  the  assumption  of 
absolute  equality  among  all  citizens — excepting  the 
oft-quoted  principle  of  "  equality  before  the  law." 

EQUALITY 

We  must  examine  more  deeply  and  widely  into  the 
meaning  of  the  term  "  equality  "  ;    for  upon  its  just 


340  POLITICS 

conception  depends  ultimately  the  whole  theory  of 
politics,  as  well  as  ethics,  our  collective  social  life  and 
our  individual  life.  It  will  be  found  that  most  of 
the  great  struggles,  the  internecine  warfare  within 
States  and  communities  in  the  past,  and  especially  in 
the  pregnant  period  of  the  present,  depend  upon  the 
just  conception  of  this  term  in  its  relation  to  human 
life. 

Equality  taken  by  itself  means  stagnation.  Like 
absolute  symmetry  it  is  static  and  not  organic  or 
progressive. 

It  would  thus  only  apply  to  the  inorganic  world,  in 
which  there  is  no  life.  Life  implies  movement  and 
change.  The  laws  of  this  change  in  organic  life  are 
determined  by  what  is  known  as  The  Survival  of  the 
Fittest.  But  in  human  life  with  conscious  reasoning 
and  moral  purpose  we  rise  from  purely  physical 
values  to  moral  values.  These  moral  values  (which 
include  physical  values)  in  their  comprehensive 
varieties  are  determined  on  a  scale  of  preference  by 
conscious  human  beings.  We  have  already  seen1 
how  all  conscious  activity  (not  to  say  the  subconscious 
and  even  unconscious)  is  determined  by  preference, 
the  choice  of  the  line  of  action  which  approaches 
nearest  to  the  image  of  a  most  perfect  consummation. 
It  ultimately  aims  at  the  Best  and  passes  through  the 
various  degrees  in  the  scale  from  the  Inferior  to  the 
Better.  Equality  is  the  negation  of  this  progression 
in  values  as  applied  to  every  single  conscious  action 
and  to  the  summary  aim  of  all  action.  As  an  ideal  it 
would  reduce  human  life,  individual  and  collective,  to 
that  of  the  unconscious  animal  whose  energies  are  all 
spent  in  safeguarding  physical  subsistence  ;  and  its 
ideal  of  social  life  would  point  backwards  to  prehistoric 
man,  whose  needs  were  limited  to  subsistence  in  which 
all  could  share  equally  without  any  differentiation  in 

1  See  Epistemology. 


INEQUALITY  341 

effort,  in  achievement  or  in  personal  values.  The 
same  emphatically  applies  to  the  relative  value  of 
human  beings  in  themselves  taken  as  individual 
personalities,  and  of  their  several  functions,  actions 
and  capacities  corresponding  to  the  complex  needs 
of  advanced  social  life.  Bolshevism  rests  on  the 
assumption  of  the  equality  of  all  values — or,  rather, 
it  assigns  the  higher  value  to  what  is  manifestly  and 
admittedly  the  lower  in  what  it  calls  the  proletariat, 
which  body  is  to  rule  the  State  and  human  society, 
while  it  directly  aims  at  the  extirpation  of  what  is 
called  the  intelligentsia.  On  the  other  hand,  we 
equally  admit  that  the  unregulated  rule  of  forces 
which,  originally  possessing  a  superior  moral  value, 
have,  by  physical  or  historical  accident,  subsequently 
established  their  rule  in  spite  of  their  actual  inferior 
moral  values,  loses  its  moral  quality  and  justification, 
and  as  blind  physical  forces  they  must  similarly  be 
controlled  and  regulated.  It  is  here  that  the  social 
and  moral  principle  of  Fraternity  asserts  its  admitted 
claim  in  directing  and  modifying  the  leading  force 
of  the  aristotropic  instinct,  and  the  "  aristocratic  " 
rule  in  social  and  political  life.  Thus,  from  the 
moral  as  well  as  the  physical  point  of  view,  inequality, 
the  prevalence  of  the  physically  and  morally  superior 
and  best,  demands  and  confirms  the  general  rule  in 
social  life  of  what  is  called  Individualism  in  the 
direction  of  what  is  generally  known  as  Socialism. 
The  claims  of  Fraternity  and  justice,  as  well  as  the 
final  well-being  of  the  State  as  a  whole,  must  limit 
the  activities  of  Individualism  leading  to  Inequality. 
For  instance,  in  every  civilised  community  the  duty 
to  provide  for  the  mere  physical  subsistence  of  our 
fellow-men,  who  must  not  be  allowed  to  starve,  must 
be  admitted.  Beyond  that,  as  is  fully  expressed  by 
modern  legislation  regarding  "  old  age  pensions,"  the 
care  of  the  genuinely  unemployed,  various  forms  of 


342  POLITICS 

insurance  against  disease,  accidents,  etc.,  testify  to  the 
recognition  of  such  "  fraternal  "  duties.  Even  beyond 
these  the  means  of  providing  for  all  forms  of  education, 
which  not  only  ensure  a  general  minimum  standard 
of  intellectual  and  moral  training  to  the  civilised 
community  as  a  whole,  but  furnish  opportunities  for 
that  self-improvement  which  enables  the  individual 
to  display  superior  capacities  in  the  progressive  scale 
of  human  personality  and  achievement — all  these 
clearly  prove  the  recognition  of  these  "  Socialistic  " 
principles.  On  the  other  hand,  the  inherent,  almost 
facile,  tendency  of  wealth  to  increase  by  its  very  bulk 
and  centripetal  attraction  may  reach  a  point  at  which 
it  confers  such  powers  upon  the  individuals  who 
possess  it  that  the  inordinate  predominance  of  power 
in  private  hands  has  proved  to  be  "  against  good 
policy,"  to  the  detriment  of  society,  and  must,  in  so 
far,  be  controlled  and  limited.1 

Within  these  two  outside  limits  the  recognition  and 
encouragement  of  individual  superiority  in  every  aspect 
of  life  is  to  be  facilitated  by  the  action  of  the  State. 
Our  code  must  in  the  future  be  :  Socialism  at  the 
extreme  top  and  at  the  bottom,  and  Individualism 
in  between.  One  of  the  most  important  functions  of 
the  State  in  the  future  will  be,  to  clear  the  way  from 
impediments  and  obstructions  of  inadequate  tradi- 
tions, as  well  as  evil  devices  and  skilful  evasions  of 
existing  laws,  if  not  dishonesty  and  crime,  to  make 
room  for  all  individual  and  collective  activities  which 

1  A ristodemocracy,  etc.,  Appendix  iv,  "Transportation  of  Capital" 
(quoted  from  my  The  Political  Confessions  of  a  Practical  Idealist,  1911). 
I  have  here  endeavoured  to  show  up  the  evils  of  modern  "  Promoting  " 
and  "  Finance,"  and  have  urged  that  the  State  must  take  over  the 
function  of  "  Transportation  of  Capital."  It  is  futile  to  maintain  that 
enterprise  would  cease  or  be  impeded  by  removing  the  stimulus  of 
individual  reward.  It  can,  on  the  contrary,  be  shown  how  "  Confidence 
and  Credit  "  would  be  increased,  and  how  the  true  Discoverer  and 
Inventor  would  be  helped  and  encouraged  if  responsible  public  bodies 
would  take  over  the  work  of  the  Promoter  and  the  modern  forms  of 
Intermediation  between  Capital  and  Work 


SOCIALISM  AND  INDIVIDUALISM          343 

tend  towards  improvement  and  progress,  and,  while 
encouraging  the  individual  to  make  good  the  superior 
powers  within  him,  increase  the  wealth  and  well-being 
of  the  community  as  a  whole.  The  evolution  in 
modern  times  of  the  system  of  public  means  of  trans- 
portation as  regards  communication  by  roads  and 
posts  will  have  to  be  extended  in  all  directions.  While 
this  will  ultimately  apply  to  all  forms  of  productive- 
ness of  things  of  physical  and  moral  value,  it  will  in 
the  first  instance  concern,  above  all,  what  we  must 
call  the  Transportation  of  Capital  from  the  point  of 
its  accumulation  to  the  numerous  regions  where  it  is 
most  required,  to  ensure  the  proper  working  of  the 
industrial  machinery  of  every  State.  Such  action  is 
called  for,  not  only  because  of  the  immediate  economic 
advantage  to  commerce  and  industry,  but  because  in 
modern  times  the  occupation  or  profession  of  manipu- 
lating the  capital  of  others  has  led  to  an  inordinately 
facile  concentration  of  wealth  into  single  hands  with- 
out due  moral  justification  as  regards  individual 
effort  ;  not  only  because  it  also  leads  to  the  demorali- 
sation of  standards  of  work  and  payment  as  regards 
the  whole  community,  but  because  such  a  function 
on  the  part  of  the  State,  which  will  increase  confidence 
and  credit  in  commercial  transactions,  can  readily 
be  used  as  a  source  of  public  revenue.1  These  limi- 
tations, so  far  from  supplanting  the  principles  of 
individualism  and  of  progressiveness  by  those  of  com- 
munism and  equality,  will  safeguard  and  strengthen 
the  real  exercise  of  individual  differentiated  capacities 
and  will  ensure  the  prevalence  of  physical  and  moral 
superiority  in  all  economic,  social,  intellectual,  as  well 
as  political,  life. 

The  principle  of  equality  cannot  apply  to  the  poli- 
tical functions  of  the  Government,  and  the  people 
who  create  or  select  it.  In  this  most  important 

1  Aristodemocracy,  "  Transportation  of  Capital." 


344  POLITICS 

sphere  of  civilised  life  it  is,  above  all,  necessary  that 
those  who  govern  and  those  who  confer  upon  them 
the  authority  to  govern  should  both  act  according 
to  the  principle  of  progressive  differences  of  value  and 
should  be  qualified  thus  to  act.  The  principle  of 
liberty  upon  which  democracy  is  based  thus  neces- 
sarily implies  the  liberty  effectively  to  choose  the 
best  form  of  government,  and  to  elect  those  best 
qualified  to  act  according  to  its  laws.  While  thus 
evidently  there  must  be  a  difference  in  the  degree  of 
fitness  for  the  task  of  governing,  there  also  exist 
different  degrees  of  fitness  for  the  function  of  selecting 
those  who  are  to  govern.  The  privilege  of  birth  being 
discarded,  the  broadest  qualification  hitherto  adopted 
has  been  that  of  wealth.  From  the  most  ancient 
times  onwards,  and  since  the  French  Revolution 
markedly  in  our  own  days  of  so-called  commercialism, 
wealth  has  been  fixed  as  a  standard  of  qualification 
for  voting  ;  but  it  has  been  recognised  by  the  intellec- 
tual and  moral  consciousness  of  modern  peoples  that 
such  a  distinction  is  not  justified.  On  the  other 
hand,  it  must  equally  be  admitted  that  mere  quantity 
of  votes,  in  which  the  lowest  quality  may  predominate, 
in  no  way  ensures  the  Rule  of  the  Best  ;  that  ochlo- 
cracy is  no  less  intolerable  than  were  autocracy  and 
oligarchy. 

The  more  this  is  understood  the  more  will  it  have 
to  be  recognised  that  it  will  be  one  of  the  most  im- 
portant functions  of  the  State  (as  in  past  ages  the 
fount  of  all  "  honours  "  was  the  king  or  the  over-lord) 
to  fix  the  progressive  values  of  services  and  thus  to 
direct  the  actual  life  of  the  people  in  all  spheres, 
economically,  socially,  intellectually,  in  culture  and 
morality — all  tending  towards  peace  and  progress. 
The  State  will  manifest  its  activity  in  this  direction 
by  encouraging  and  advancing  all  organisations  and 
institutions  which  are  directly  concerned  in  culture, 


PROGRESSIVE  VALUE  OF  SERVICES      345 

the  education  of  the  young  as  well  as  adult  education, 
and  all  the  higher  forms  of  Art  and  Science,  and  all 
organised  effort  in  the  direction  of  morality  and 
public  welfare.  But,  further  than  this,  the  State 
must  give  public  recognition  to  the  best  work,  and 
the  improvement  in  all  spheres  of  life  from  that  of 
the  best  bricklayer  to  that  of  the  best  statesman, 
man  of  science,  artist  or  philanthropist. 

It  is  on  these  grounds  and  in  this  direction  that  a 
truly  equitable  distinction  can  be  established  to  confer 
differences  of  voting  power  within  the  democratic 
suffrage  given  to  all  free  people.  I  have  elsewhere  l 
ventured  to  make  positive  suggestions  for  a  scheme 
by  which  Democracy  can  be  saved  from  Ochlocracy, 
the  rule  of  free,  but  competent,  people  saved  from  the 
tyranny  of  the  ignorant  mass.  Let  it  not  be  said 
that  such  a  plan  rests  merely  on  ideal  grounds,  that 
it  is  Utopian,  and  is  not  realisable  in  actual  life. 
It  is  eminently  just  and  practical,  and  can  be  worked 
by  simple  and  just  means.  I  cannot  do  better  than 
repeat  the  passage  in  which  this  scheme  is  given  in 
outline  : 

1 "  Now,  in  our  own  day  in  the  momentous  introduc- 
tion of  Woman  Suffrage,  we  are  already  warned  that 
some  equally  irrational  and  unjust  limitation  of  age 
beyond  majority,  or  of  residence  or  property,  may  be 
chosen.  But  there  is  some  hope  for  those  who 
think  as  I  do,  that  the  practical  problem  of  introducing 
and  defining  the  principles  of  suffrage  for  women  may 
ultimately  lead  in  practical  politics  to  the  establish- 
ment of  rational  and  just  principles  of  selection  and 
limitation  into  the  franchise  of  every  democratic 
State  as  a  whole,  a  hope  which  before  this  great 
historic  event  would  never  have  been  thought  possible 
of  realisation. 

"The  only  just  and  rational  principle  of  differentia- 
tion which  will  accord  with  the  modern  political  and 

1  Patriotism,  etc.,  p.  xx  seq. 


346  POLITICS 

moral  convictions  of  civilised  peoples  is  education, 
or  rather  the  manifest  and  directly  active  results  of 
education.  But  we  must  at  once  make  it  clear  that 
such  education  does  not  mean  learning.  For,  apart 
from  our  a  priori  reasons  on  the  effect  of  science  and 
learning  by  themselves  as  a  direct  preparation  for 
social  and  political  activity,  our  recent  experience  in 
respect  of  the  German  nation  and  the  political 
influence  of  its  learned  professors  shows  the  futility 
of  such  training  in  ensuring  political  judgment  and 
independence  of  action.  Moreover,  the  results  of 
stereotyped  and  fossilised  learning  and  its  tests,  as 
applied  to  the  active  political  life  of  the  Chinese 
Empire,  give  the  same  warning  in  this  direction. 

"The  education  required,  and  the  practical  results 
to  be  obtained,  must  themselves  be  social  and  political. 
It  is  furthermore  essential  that  the  tests  for  the 
possession  of  such  qualifications  must  be  simple, 
practical,  and  democratic  in  spirit.  The  principle, 
not  so  much  of  limitation  as  of  differentiation  and 
selection  determining  the  franchise,  must  be  that 
already  admitted  in  the  practical  discussion  of 
various  democratic  legislatures,  namely,  of  propor- 
tionate representation.  Free  citizens  would  not  be 
deprived  of  the  franchise  excepting  on  principles 
already  admitted  in  the  exclusion  of  minors,  lunatics, 
and  criminals,  in  order  to  safeguard  the  community 
against  the  rule  of  crass  ignorance  and  folly.  Now, 
with  the  introduction  of  compulsory  national  element- 
ary education  into  every  civilised  democracy,  there 
could  be  no  hardship  or  grievance  or  any  reversal  of 
the  democratic  principle  if  the  simple  tests  of  the 
1  leaving  '  examinations  from  the  national  schools 
were  to  be  applied  as  a  condition  of  the  grant  of  the 
franchise.  Crass  illiteracy  can  hardly  be  upheld  by 
anybody,  nor  can  the  illiterate  who  fails  to  make  use 
of  the  opportunities  offered  to  every  citizen  consider 
himself  wronged  if  he  is  excluded  from  contributing 
to  the  legislation  of  his  neighbours  as  well  as  of  him- 
self. He  practically  remains  a  minor,  if  not  a  mentally 
deficient  or  criminal.  But  such  elementary  education 
must  emphatically  include  in  its  school  curriculum 


POLITICAL  RIGHTS  AND  PRIVILEGES      347 

two  subjects  :  so-called  civics  and  modern  ethics. 
In  an  elementary  form  every  boy  or  girl  in  the  country 
must  be  instructed  in  the  essential  outlines  of  the 
constitution  of  the  country  and  the  duty  of  the  citizen, 
as  they  must  also  be  instructed  in  the  code  of  indi- 
vidual ethics  regulating  the  moral  life  of  a  definite 
community  in  a  definite  period.  Though  this  will 
in  no  way  produce  statesmen  or  saints  and  directly 
ensure  political  efficiency  or  moral  uprightness,  it 
will  in  the  aggregate  save  the  masses  from  the  crass 
ignorance  of  politics  prevailing  at  the  present  moment, 
as  it  will  raise  the  standards  of  social  morality  through- 
out the  nation. 

"  At  the  end  of  the  course  of  school-teaching  in  these 
elementary  schools  there  is  to  be  a  '  leaving  '  examin- 
ation, where  especial  prominence  is  to  be  given  to 
elementary  civics  and  ethics.  An  ordinary  pass  in 
such  elementary  training  will  be  a  condition  for  the 
franchise  imposed  upon  every  citizen  when  he  has 
attained  his  majority.  There  will  be  no  repudia- 
tion of  truly  democratic  principles  if  those  who  fail 
to  pass  such  an  examination  should  not  be  eligible 
to  vote,  any  more  than  our  present  refusal  to  admit 
minors,  lunatics,  or  the  feeble-minded  constitutes 
an  undemocratic  repudiation  of  true  liberty. 

'  In  England  our  age  has  not  infrequently  been 
called  the  '  Age  of  Examinations,'  and  the  phrase 
'  the  curse  of  examinations  '  has  often  been  used  with 
some  justice  by  those  who  have  the  higher  interests 
of  true  science  and  learning  at  heart,  as  well  as  the 
unfettered  development  of  the  individual  mind  and 
the  encouragement  of  individuality  and  genius.  On 
the  other  hand,  it  must  not  be  forgotten  that,  if 
examinations  are  an  evil,  they  are  to  the  same  degree 
a  necessary  evil  ;  and  that  the  advantages  derived 
from  them  far  outweigh  the  disadvantages  which 
they  entail.  They  do  universally  and  ultimately 
encourage  the  diffusion  of  accurate  knowledge,  and 
the  raising  of  standards  of  mental  training  and 
efficiency,  and,  above  all,  they  assert  and  realise  the 
principle  of  justice  as  opposed  to  injustice  and 
partiality.  In  the  case  of  public  and  official  work, 


348  POLITICS 

without  them  the  doors  would  again  be  opened  to 
ignorance  and  favouritism,  however  many  brilliant 
exceptions  the  practice  of  previous  days  may  have 
produced  in  the  unfettered  success  of  great  individuals 
or  of  the  favoured  classes.  Moreover,  examinations 
can  be  improved  in  their  true  testing  capacities  as  well 
as  simplified  and  made  thoroughly  practical  in  their 
application  to  the  educational  life  of  the  community. 
"  Corresponding  to  our  advance  from  primary  to 
secondary  education,  there  would  have  to  be  intro- 
duced, together  with  the  proper  teaching  in  these 
subjects,  higher  '  final  '  examinations  in  advanced 
civics  and  ethics.  The  ignorance  of  even  the  most 
favoured  classes,  owing  to  their  deficient  education,  of 
even  the  rudiments  of  the  laws  and  practices  in  the 
ordinary  working  of  the  British  Constitution,  is,  when 
tested,  beyond  all  belief.  Without  considering  the 
more  complicated  and  theoretical  aspects  of  our 
legislative  and  administrative  life,  it  would  be  a 
revelation  to  the  inquirer  if  he  discovered  how  many 
people  amongst  the  most  highly  educated  classes  are 
in  no  way  conversant  with  the  system  of  local  govern- 
ment and  national  administration,  nor  with  the  rela- 
tion between  these  two  divisions  of  public  life  ;  and 
how  very  few  there  are  who  could  give  a  clear  and 
accurate  account  of  what  some  may  vaguely  appre- 
hend. Even  the  purpose,  nature,  and  distribution  of 
local,  national,  and  federal  taxation,  in  which  we  are 
all  definitely  concerned  through  the  strongest  appeal 
to  our  own  material  interests,  are  understood  but  by 
a  comparatively  small  number  ;  while  there  are  still 
fewer  who  could  give  a  clear  account  of  such  principles 
and  practices.  Surely  something  is  radically  wrong  in 
the  training  of  citizens  in  a  democracy  when  such 
ignorance  prevails  ;  and  this  is  especially  so  when  we 
realise  that  the  country  is  ruled  by  the  people  them- 
selves. 

'  It  is  therefore  not  only  desirable,  but  urgently 
necessary,  that  the  civic  life  of  our  great  democracies 
should  be  supplemented  by  the  preliminary  training 
in  the  constitutional  practice  of  the  country,  and  that 
further  encouragement  be  given  to  the  acquisition 


HIGHER  STANDARDS  AND  VOTING  POWER    349 

of  thorough  knowledge  of  the  political  theory  and 
practice  of  every  democracy.  While  increasing  the 
fitness  of  the  citizen  properly  to  use  his  right  of 
franchise,  it  would  also  prepare  the  intelligent  voter 
himself  to  become  an  intelligent  and  efficient  legislator 
and  administrator. 

"  The  recognition  and  encouragement  of  such  in- 
creased political  fitness  should  consist  in  the  granting 
of  an  additional  vote,  over  and  above  the  elementary- 
franchise  open  to  every  citizen  ;  and  this  democratic 
privilege  would  be  acquired  by  the  passing  of  the 
secondary  standard  of  education,  especially  in  higher 
civics.  Beyond  a  more  thorough  knowledge  of  the 
British  Constitution,  such  civics  might  even  include 
some  familiarity  with  the  important  constitutions  of 
other  countries,  as  well  as  international  relationships, 
interests,  and  ideals.  Though  questionable,  it  may 
be  found  desirable  that  the  further  educational  pro- 
gression (always  including  a  corresponding  advance 
in  the  study  of  civics)  from  the  school  to  the  university 
or  technical  high-schools,  when  realised  in  the  final 
testing  examination,  might  lead  to  the  conferment  of 
yet  another  additional  vote. 

"  Besides  thus  confirming  the  principle  of  demo- 
cratic justice  in  this  progression  in  the  franchise  and 
contributing  to  the  consequent  efficiency  of  the 
government  of  the  State,  such  practice  would  (as  I 
hinted  above)  react  upon  the  advance  of  national 
education,  raise  its  standards,  and  increase  its  practical 
effectiveness  for  the  whole  people.  For  it  would 
directly  furnish  a  reward  for  all  progress  in  intellectual, 
moral,  and  political  education,  and  would  certainly 
end  in  raising  the  economic  and  industrial  efficiency 
as  well  as  the  social  and  political  standards  of  the 
nation  as  a  whole.1 

1  While  I  have  always  been  a  most  convinced  opponent  of  German 
militarism,  I  have  always  realised  that  there  was  one  redeeming  result 
of  this  cursed  and  barbarous  survival  in  modern  life,  besides  the 
physical  training  which  it  confers  upon  the  mass  of  the  people  who  in 
Germany  have  but  little  opportunity  for  such  development.  This 
boon  is  the  long-established  Einj&hrig  freiwillige  examination,  by  the 
passing  of  which  examination  the  conscript  German  can  reduce  his 
military  service  to  one  year.  These  examinations  mark  a  high  standard 
cf  proficiency.  Though  not  wholly  due  to  them,  the  spread  of  higher 


350  POLITICS 

"  Beyond  these  tests,  conveying  increased  greater 
voting  power  upon  the  free  citizens  of  a  country,  there 
will  be  other  sources  of  such  increase  and  advance- 
ment, namely,  through  the  '  Honours  '  conferred  by 
the  State.  Such  Honours  will  no  longer  be  hereditary, 
nor  will  they  be  bought  with  money.  On  the  initiative 
of  Lord  Selborne  I  am  gratified  to  see  that,  at  the 
very  moment  that  I  am  writing  these  lines,  a  definite 
and  renewed  attempt  is  being  made  in  the  House  of 
Lords  to  check,  and  even  to  eradicate,  such  abuses 
in  the  conferring  of  Honours.  The  Honours  here 
contemplated  by  us  are  to  consist  in  the  additional 
vote,  or  votes,  conferred  upon  the  citizen  who  has 
done  good  service  to  the  State,  or  has  attained  dis- 
tinction and  eminence  in  whatever  walk  of  life  might 
conduce  to  the  welfare  and  progress  of  society.  Not 
only  statesmen  and  public  servants,  soldiers  and 
sailors,  but  philanthropists  and  men  eminent  in 
Science,  Learning,  and  Art,  as  well  as  the  leaders  of 
Industry,  Commerce,  and  Labour,  are  thus  to  be 
distinguished  and  rewarded  ;  and  such  rewards  are 
to  increase  and  be  cumulative  as  each  recipient 
advances  in  achievement,  eminence,  and  continuous 
work  in  his  useful  career.  There  will  thus  be  not  only 
three-vote  men,  but  even  ten-vote  men  ;  nay,  there 
is  no  reason  why,  towards  the  end  of  a  great  career, 
there  should  not  be  a  hundred-  or  even  a  thousand- 
vote  man.  This  progression  in  public  recognition  and 
stimulation  would  be  one  of  the  most  important 
duties  of  the  State,  and  the  distinctions  conferred 
would  be  effectively  admitted  by  the  public  with  the 
unconditional  moral  approbation  of  every  free  citizen. 
While  ensuring  and  accelerating  the  predominance  of 
what  is  best  in  the  body  politic,  this  function  of  the 
State  would  be  distinctly  democratic  ;  for  such 
Honours  would  not  be  hereditary  and  would  be  within 
the  reach  of  every  citizen.  Moreover,  they  would 
directly  react  upon  the  education  of  the  people  and 
would  constitute  the  most  powerful  incentive  to  the 

education  and  consequent  industrial  and  commercial  efficiency  of 
modern  Germany  is,  to  a  great  extent,  due  to  this  very  effective 
itimulant  to  education  among  the  people. 


THE  COMMON  DENOMINATOR  OF  VALUE    351 

advancement  of  education  among  the  entire  popula- 
tion which  the  State  can  offer. 

11  From  time  to  time  new  laws  would  be  passed, 
modifying  and  increasing  or  diminishing  these 
privileges  ;  political  contests  and  parties  would  surge 
round  this  all-important  and  all-powerful  function. 
Conservatives  and  Liberals  would  define  their  dis- 
tinctiveness  on  the  ground  of  the  position  they  would 
take  with  regard  to  the  questions  and  problems 
regulating  this  power.  No  doubt  in  the  process  of 
such  activity  abuses  would  creep  in  and  fierce  con- 
tests would  arise.  But,  after  all,  this  healthy  struggle 
in  political  life  would  be  concerned  with  the  establish- 
ment and  advancement  of  what  is  most  important 
and  what  is  essential  to  the  political  life  of  civilised 
society,  namely,  the  establishment  of  the  Rule  of 
the  Best. 

'  This  is  my  answer  to  the  question  we  put  above  : 
How  can  this  Best  be  assured  ?  " 

But  the  fact  remains  that  the  economical  or 
material  expression  of  the  various  social  values  has 
been  expressed  by  one  common  denominator  in  life, 
i.e.  money.  The  numerous  evils  and  injustices  to 
which  money  in  itself  has  led  in  our  commercial  age 
are  conspicuous.  We  may,  for  instance,  say  that  most 
crimes  in  the  world  can  ultimately  be  traced  back 
to  the  influence  of  money,  sex  or  drink.  The  power 
which  the  accumulation  of  money  gives  has  produced 
a  revolt  in  the  minds  of  most  right-thinking  people 
and  especially  in  the  hearts  of  the  poor,  who  are 
deprived  of  such  power.  The  ability  to  counteract 
this  great  evil  of  modern  life  lies,  in  the  first  instance, 
in  the  hands  of  every  community  itself.  For  it 
should  bestow  its  highest  approval  and  distinction 
upon  those  who  by  their  services  and  productivity 
exhibit  the  highest  moral,  intellectual  and  artistic 
qualities,  and  thereby  directly  raise  the  standard 
of  public  life,  so  that  the  people  themselves  do 


352  POLITICS 

not  worship  the  golden  calf.  But  the  State  can 
confirm  and  give  publicity  to  such  recognition  and, 
by  its  own  public  approval,  set  a  stamp  on  such 
merit  by  conferring  public  honours.  In  all-  times, 
for  instance,  valour  in  battle  has  been  publicly 
recognised  by  the  State.  Such  action  on  the  part 
of  the  State  is  all  the  more  necessary  in  the  conditions 
of  modern  life.  Formerly  the  smaller  states  made 
it  possible  to  assert  merit,  publicly  realised  and 
recognised  by  all  the  inhabitants.  The  improved 
means  of  communication  and  publicity  in  the  larger 
modern  states  and  empires  can  thus  be  utilised, 
which  makes  the  direct  action  of  the  State  in  this  im- 
portant aspect  of  public  life  all  the  more  imperative. 
Thus  to  confer  social  distinction  according  to  the 
higher  spiritual  and  moral  values,  which  are  ultimately 
one  of  the  moving  interests  and  aims  of  communal 
life,  would  counteract  the  tyranny  of  money. 

But  recognising  these  evils  and  counteracting  them 
as  far  as  possible,  we  still  have  to  answer  the  question, 
"  What  can  be  substituted  for  money  as  the  economic 
common  denominator  of  values  ?  "  If  completely 
dispensed  with,  what  takes  its  place  ?  We  cannot 
return  to  the  rudimentary  system  of  barter,  nor  has 
any  reasonable  or  acceptable  means  of  the  material 
expression  of  values  been  as  yet  devised.  Until  this 
is  done,  we  must  still  adhere  to  this  form  of  eco- 
nomically determining  moral  values. 

But  the  trend  of  the  broadest  modern  political 
movements,  which  aim  at  counteracting  the  evils 
arising  out  of  economic  power,  measured  by  the 
standard  of  wealth  in  money,  consists  in  ultimately 
counteracting  its  power  entirely  as  represented  by 
capital  and  substituting  for  it  what  is  called  Labour. 
By  a  series  of  arguments  tending  to  show  that  all 
wealth  is  derived  from  labour,  and  that  labour  is 
the  ultimate  common  denominator  of  all  values,  the 


LABOUR  AND  COMMUNISTIC  IDEALS      353 

manifest  or  insidious  fallacies  which  are  employed 
to  justify  pure  Communism  or  Bolshevism  have 
grouped  round  the  false  definition  and  misinterpre- 
tation of  the  term  Labour.  For  there  is  an  effective 
and  prevalent  tendency  to  restrict  the  definition  of 
labour  to  manual  labour,  and  at  least  to  make  our 
standard  of  valuation  depend  entirely  upon  the  basis 
of  the  lowest  forms  of  manual  labour,  as  deserving  of 
the  rights,  privileges  and  rewards  that  are  bestowed 
upon  all  other  forms  of  service.  If  the  quantitative 
degree  of  human  energy  put  into  labour  is  to  be  the 
measure  of  the  quality  of  production,  of  the  value 
of  the  object,  and  also  of  the  service  and  the  share 
of  reward  justly  to  be  bestowed  upon  it,  all  idea  of 
perfectibility  and  progress  and  of  the  higher  life  of 
man  is  ipso  facto  denied.  Let  anyone  who  is  moved 
by  communistic  ideals  simply  ask  himself  what  would 
be  the  result  upon  human  productivity,  achievement 
and  service  in  the  world,  what  would  be  the  standards 
of  productivity  and  the  standards  of  social  life  follow- 
ing upon  the  realisation  of  such  ideals  ?  If  all  forms 
of  labour  and  creativeness  are  equivalent,  though  we 
cannot  even  realise  such  a  state  of  things  in  the 
earliest  half-animal  conditions  in  the  life  of  pre- 
historic man,  what  would  be  the  result  in  our  own 
days  ?  Why  should  any  object  produced  be  better 
than  another  ?  Why  should  any  object  rise  above 
the  ordinary  minimum  use  of  material  existence  ? 
Why  should  foodstuffs,  clothing  and  housing  be  im- 
proved beyond  contributing  to  the  needed  physical 
subsistence  of  human  beings  ?  Why  should  any 
of  these  necessary  products  of  life  be  raised  upwards 
into  a  sphere  of  what  might  be  called  luxury — in 
the  preparation  and  serving  of  food,  in  the  manu- 
facture and  shaping  of  clothing,  in  the  quality 
of  building  and  the  form  of  its  construction  and 
decoration  ?  Why,  to  make  a  bolder  step  into  the 
24 


354  POLITICS 

delicate  and  innumerable  complexities  of  highly 
civilised  life,  should  books  be  printed  as  beautifully 
as  possible,  and  skilled  craftsmeh  and  artists  devote 
any  time  to  producing  exquisite  bindings  ?  Why 
should  men  of  science  devote  themselves  to  the  highest 
and  most  abstract  problems  of  nature,  life  and 
thought,  which  have  no  ostensible  bearing  upon  the 
necessities  of  actual  life  ?  Why  should  artists  produce 
works  that  thrill  and  elevate  mankind  throughout 
the  ages  ?  A  local  stonecutter  can  hew  a  monument 
in  the  public  square  of  a  town  which  will  occupy  the 
same  place  and  be  made  of  the  same  material  as  the 
work  of  a  Pheidias,  a  Michelangelo,  or  a  Rodin.  Why 
should  beautiful  textiles  in  exquisite  materials  be 
produced  in  the  most  perfect  form,  designed  and 
woven  by  the  most  skilled  hands  ?  We  could  fill 
a  whole  volume  with  such  questions,  illustrating  in 
detail  what  would  happen  if  by  one  act  we  could 
sweep  away  all  the  innumerable  forms  of  pro- 
ductivity to  which  our  higher  civilisation  has  attained 
and  reduce  them  to  one  useful  adequate  standardisa- 
tion that  would  satisfy  the  immediate  needs  of  all 
citizens  who  insist  upon  the  fetish  of  equality.  And 
we  could  do  this  without  any  exaggeration  or  unfair- 
ness in  argument,  by  following  up  the  Communist 
theory  to  its  ultimate  consequence,  the  fundamental 
principles  upon  which  it  constructs  its  theory  of 
economy  and  of  social  life.  But  the  answer  may  be 
given  :  Let  the  best  and  highest  works  be  produced, 
the  most  sumptuous  buildings  be  erected,  the  perfect 
work  of  art  be  created,  and  science  pursue  its  highest 
ideals  ;  but  these  products  belong  to  the  community 
as  a  whole,  to  the  State,  and  ought  not  to  be  pro- 
curable by  a  minority  of  citizens  who  have  the  good 
fortune  to  belong  to  the  "  possessing  "  classes. 
Though  we  may  at  once  admit  that  the  truly  greatest 
work  of  art  and  achievement  of  science  really  ought 


THE  ASCENDING   SCALE   OF  FACULTIES     355 

to  belong  to  the  community  and  the  world  at  large, 
and  ought  not  to  be  the  property  of  one  privileged 
individual  or  group,  can  anyone  maintain  that  in  the 
process  of  development  and  selection  of  the  greatest 
producer  and  his  productions,  such  highest  excellence 
can  at  once  be  defined  and  obtained  ?  However  true 
it  may  be  that  the  poet  is  born  and  not  made,  he  only 
becomes  the  great  poet  or  artist,  or  genius  in  science, 
in  the  arduous  process  of  life  resulting  in  a  progression 
from  the  humble  and  inferior  to  the  great  and 
superior.  Can  it  be  maintained  that  in  the  ascending 
scale  of  human  life,  individual  and  communal,  it 
is  not  desirable  to  infuse  the  best  quality,  beauty 
and  intrinsic  value  into  every  product  of  the  mind 
and  the  hand,  and  that  these  qualities  should  not  enter 
into  the  daily  life  of  all  the  objects  of  use  in  the  homes 
and  surroundings  of  civilised  beings  ?  It  is  upon  this 
mainspring  of  human  activity  and  effort  that  all 
productiveness  of  man  rests  as  he  advances  from 
the  animal  stage,  through  all  phases  of  the  past, 
to  the  highest  civilisation  and  culture.  What  would 
our  modern  life  be  if  quantity  were  to  replace  quality, 
and  equality  block  the  way  to  the  development  of 
superiority  ?  One  immediate  result  would  be,  as  is 
demonstrated  before  our  eyes  in  Russia  at  this 
moment,  that  all  the  great  achievements  of  spiritual 
life,  and  even  of  economical  life,  would  be  disintegrated 
and  gradually  annihilated. 

Leaving  the  consideration  of  man's  productivity, 
the  things  he  produces,  and  turning  to  the  services 
themselves  and  the  scale  of  valuation  of  these  services, 
we  must  ask  the  first  question  from  the  point  of  view 
of  economic  productiveness  :  How  are  these  varied 
commodities  that  make  up  the  totality  of  modern 
life,  in  contradistinction  to  the  lower  phases  of 
civilisation,  to  be  produced,  i.e.  for  whom  are  they 
to  be  produced,  beyond  those  great  public  works 


356  POLITICS 

that  ought  to  be  the  property  of  the  community  as 
a  whole  ?  For  whom  is  the  best  manufacturer, 
craftsman  and  artisan  to  do  his  best  work,  if  no  best 
works  are  to  exist,  but  only  the  standardised  mini- 
mum for  the  citizens  of  absolutely  equal  value  ? 
From  this  point  of  view  alone,  purely  objective 
as  regards  the  desirable  production  of  best  goods, 
the  increased  purchasing  power  of  individuals  is  of 
itself  desirable. 

We  thus  come  to  the  root  of  the  fallacy  in  the 
communistic  conception  of  "  Labour  "  ;  namely, 
equality  in  the  value  of  services,  and  consequent 
equalisation  in  compensation,  or  wages.  If  the 
statue  of  Michelangelo  is  absolutely  better  than  that 
of  the  comparatively  unskilled  stonecutter,  then  the 
services  of  the  more  highly  skilled  are  more  valuable 
than  those  of  the  inferior  worker  and  in  all  justice 
deserve  superior  compensation.  The  superior  worker 
must  have  higher  remuneration  ;  and  this  applies  to 
every  form  of  labour  and  of  productivity.  Equiva- 
lence of  compensation  is  an  absurd  principle.  Starting 
from  the  just  establishment  of  a  minimum  wage  in 
every  employment,  the  superior  producer  does  and 
ought  to  receive  a  surplus  of  wage  or  money  above 
the  purchasing  power  which  enables  him  to  subsist 
physically.  The  question  then  comes  :  What  does 
he  do  with  this  surplus  ?  He  may  use  it  at  once  in 
responding  to  his  desires  for  immediate  physical 
gratification — he  may  waste  it  ;  or  he  may  put  it  by, 
exercising  one  of  the  greatest  of  human  qualities,  the 
power  of  prevision  to  ensure  and  control  the  uncer- 
tainties of  the  future,  or  even  to  benefit  others  besides 
his  immediate  self.  He  may  practise  the  simple  and 
homely  quality,  prized  for  so  many  ages  by  humanity, 
the  quality  of  thrift.  Thrift  has  been  recognised  from 
the  moral  as  well  as  the  economic  standard  as  one  of 
the  most  effective  private  as  well  as  public  virtues. 


TRUE    ORIGIN    OF    CAPITAL  357 

Out  of  this  simple  activity  of  the  worker  and  pro- 
ducer there  grows  the  accumulation  of  Capital,  which 
means  nothing  more  than  the  activity  of  pure  labour 
passing  through  human  character,  directed  by  man's 
supreme  and  differentiated  faculty  of  prevision  and 
at  the  same  time  developing  that  power  of  moral 
self-control  marking  the  first  step  in  his  ascent  to 
altruism  beyond  the  gratification  of  his  momentary 
desires.  Thus,  arising  out  of  the  superior  quality  of 
his  work,  to  which  are  added  certain  moral  and 
distinctly  social  qualities  of  mind  and  character,  there 
invariably  arises  the  difference  between  the  inferior 
and  the  superior,  and  this  takes  the  economic  form 
of  the  difference  between  the  possessing  individuals 
and  classes  and  the  non-possessing  or,  as  they  would 
call  themselves,  the  dispossessed  individuals  and 
classes.  When  once  this  difference  is  distinctly 
established,  it  may  lead,  and  has  led  in  the  past,  and 
more  so  in  our  days,  to  the  revolt  of  the  poor  against 
the  rich,  especially  if  those  inherent  vices  of  the 
human  species,  jealousy  and  envy,  stimulate  opposi- 
tion and  passion.  Finally,  it  may  lead  to  internecine 
war  between  the  proletariat  and  the  bourgeoisie. 

Now,  it  is  of  vital  importance  that  the  nature  of 
this  opposition  and  conflict  should  be  thoroughly 
understood  and  reduced  to  its  moral  and  political 
foundations,  and  that  each  of  the  two  contestants 
should  sympathetically  enter  into  the  mentality  of 
the  other,  and  both  strive  to  understand  what  moral 
and  intellectual  justification  (if  such  there  be)  may 
exist  in  the  hearts  and  minds  of  their  opponents. 
Above  all,  we  must  endeavour  to  grasp  the  mentality 
of  the  dispossessed  or  poor  in  their  attitude  towards 
their  fortunate  fellow-citizens  blessed  with  posses- 
sions and  wealth.  But  in  simple  fairness  we  must 
clear  the  ground  of  controversy  from  some  of  the 
arguments  which  may  justly  be  directed  against  the 


358  POLITICS 

privileged  classes  with  which  we  have  already  dealt 
above.  We  have  agreed  that  there  is  no  justification 
for  political  privileges  based  upon  birth.  We  have 
also  agreed  that  such  preference  should  not  be  based 
upon  wealth  in  itself.  We  have  also  seen  that  in  the 
direct  action  of  the  State  all  means  of  education  both 
for  the  young  and  for  the  adult  ought  to  provide  those 
opportunities  of  self-improvement  which  will  qualify 
those  not  possessed  of  privileges  of  birth  or  wealth 
to  be  governors  and  in  just  proportion  to  have  a 
share  in  selecting  and  directing  the  government. 
Accepting  these  fundamental  limitations  in  the 
organisation  of  all  democracies  (which,  however,  we 
insist,  must  tend  to  become  aristodemocracies),  the 
advocate  of  the  dispossessed  and  poor  might  fairly 
object  on  grounds  of  justice  that  there  still  exist 
undue  privileges  which  indirectly  and  ultimately,  if 
not  directly  and  immediately,  unfairly  favour  those 
born  to  riches  and  thus  possessing  wealth.  It  must 
be  admitted  that,  from  the  point  of  view  of  highest 
justice  in  the  infinite  sphere,  religion  responds  to 
man's  cravings  for  the  highest  ideals  of  a  perfect  life  I ; 
our  sublunary  life  is  full  of  injustices  which  our 
harmoniotropic  and  aristotropic  principles  must 
urge  us  to  rectify,  as  far  as  possible.  Those  who  are 
born  crippled,  diseased  or  socially  unfit  in  body  and 
mind,  those  who  are  born  with  ungainly  or  repulsive 
appearance  and  disposition,  compared  with  those 
born  sane  in  mind  and  body,  possessed  of  predisposi- 
tions, if  not  qualities,  that  win  the  affection  and 
ultimately  the  respect  of  their  fellow-men,  have  cause 
to  impeach  the  rule  of  justice  in  the  world.  Human 
society  must  do  all  in  its  power  to  rectify  this  initial 
injustice  by  every  physical  and  moral  means  within 
its  reach.  But  whatever  direct  action  the  State  may 
take  in  its  organisation  to  improve  the  physical  and 

1  See  next  chapter. 


PARENTAL    RELATION  359 

mental  development  of  its  citizens,   however  much 
the  study  of  eugenics,  based  in  its  aims  upon  civics 
and  ultimately  upon  ethics,  may  enable  us  to  do  in 
mitigation  of  these  evils,  however  much  they  might 
even  be  able  to  direct  the  course  of  heredity  towards 
a  more  equitable  distribution  of  the  greatest  physical 
and  moral  values  of  this  world  for  future  generations, 
these  efforts  cannot,  and  need  not,  destroy  the  one 
most  efficient  factor,  namely,  the  parental  relation  on 
which  the  existence  of  the  child  rests — the  family. 
Develop  the  schools  and  public  tuition,  as  well  as  all 
highest  forms  of  intellectual  and  moral  upraising  in 
the  perfect  State,  as  much  as  you  will,  you  cannot 
replace  the  immediate  factor  of  the  mother's  love  and 
the  father's  care,  the  affections  of  the  children,  and  of 
all  members  of  the  family  to  one  another,  as  the  most 
direct  and  potent  training,  if  only  on  the  mental  side 
of  those  habits  of  altruism   and   those  impulses  of 
devotion   which   make   for   the    best   character   and 
conduct  in  all  social  and  even  political  life.      And 
these  favourable  conditions  are  not  only  dependent 
upon  the  inherent  qualities  of  the  individuals  who 
compose  the  family  and   the  directing  function   of 
parental    care    and     affection,    but    also     upon    the 
physical  surroundings  of  the  home  and  its  moral  and 
intellectual  atmosphere.     It  is  here  that  that  quality 
of  altruistic  self-control,  which  led  the  parent  origin- 
ally to  practise  thrift  instead  of  being  carried  away 
by  the   impulse  of  momentary  self-indulgence,   laid 
the  foundations  for  those  physical  and  moral  condi- 
tions which  favour  the  development  of  the  young 
as  well  as   the  adult   members  of  the  family  to  be 
privileged  in  the  race  of  life.     Whatever  direct  action 
Society  and   the   State   may  take   to  replace   these 
advantages  for  those  not  possessed   of  them,   they 
need  not,  and  ought  not,  in  the  interest  of  Society 
and  of  our  highest  ideals  tending  towards  the  Best, 


360  POLITICS 

to  destroy  the  initial  conditions  which  created  them. 
There  is  therefore  no  political,  social,  or  moral  ground 
upon  which  inequality,  tending  towards  the  realisa- 
tion of  the  Best,  ought  to  be  discarded  or  actively 
counteracted.  Eugenics,  civics  and  ethics,  on  the 
contrary,  must  favour  such  inequalities  in  so  far  as 
they  tend  towards  progressivity,  perfectibility  and 
the  Rule  of  the  Best. 

But  even  if  our  advocates  of  the  poor  and  dis- 
owned were  to  admit  this  contention,  limiting 
equality  and  favouring  superior  development,  and  were 
even  to  accept  the  primary  and  favouring  conditions 
of  difference  in  possessions  and  wealth  among  the 
citizens,  they  would  oppose  the  extension  of  such  a 
principle  to  the  transmission  of  wealth  by  inheritance. 
There  is  no  doubt  that  there  is  here  a  strong  case 
on  moral  grounds,  on  the  grounds  of  justice.  "  What 
moral  grounds  ? "  one  of  the  disfavoured  or  dis- 
possessed may  exclaim,  "  can  there  be  for  one  man 
to  step  into  the  world  and,  without  any  merit  or  even 
action  on  his  part,  to  become  possessed  of  those 
privileges  which  give  to  him  such  a  disproportionate 
start  in  the  race  of  life  over  his  less  favoured  fellow- 
men  ?  What  has  he  done  to  earn  it,  and  why  should 
this  course  of  injustice  be  continued  through  genera- 
tions ?  "  Whatever  may  have  been  said  in  the  past, 
and  may  be  said  now,  concerning  the  rich  man,  the 
camel  and  the  eye  of  a  needle,  and  the  temptations 
and  pitfalls  which  must  lead  the  possessor  of  unearned 
wealth  from  degeneration  to  destruction,  the  fact 
remains,  and  need  hardly  be  argued  further,  that 
inherited  wealth  within  a  cultured  home  and  under 
the  most  favourable  surroundings,  lasting  through 
life,  does  give  an  initial  privilege  and  favourable  start 
in  the  race  of  life  over  the  poorer  competitors,  which 
only  come  to  those  who  have  benefited  by  these 
conditions. 


MORAL   RIGHT   OF   INHERITANCE        361 

Though  we  have  seen  that  the  most  favourable 
development  of  the  family  as  a  unit  is  thoroughly 
commendable  and  that  there  is  no  moral  ground  on 
which  it  should  be  diminished  or  destroyed,  the  moral 
justification  of  inheritance  from  the  point  of  view  of 
the  unmeritorious  and  inactive  beneficiary  cannot 
be  maintained,  whatever  might  in  addition  be  urged 
on  the  ground  of  eugenics  and  aristodemocracy. 
But  the  problem  presents  itself  in  quite  another  light 
when  approached  from  the  point  of  view  of  the  testator 
—the  parent  or  parents  who  desire  to  secure,  not  so 
much  privileges,  but  conditions  favouring  the  perfecti- 
bility of  their  offspring  and  their  lives  as  citizens,  so  as 
to  enable  them  to  advance  the  State  and  society  and 
ascend  towards  the  ideals  of  ethical,  social  and 
humanitarian  perfection.  As  we  were  bound  to 
admit  that  the  first  acts  of  altruism  leading  to  thrift 
were  justifiable  from  every  point  of  view  ;  and  as 
we  were  also  obliged  to  allow  that  the  family  as  a 
social  unit  was,  and  ought  to  be,  accepted  as  an 
irreducible  social  unit  which  tends  towards  the 
extension  and  perpetuation  of  desirable  qualities  in 
individual  character  and  life  ;  so  we  must  also  admit 
that  those  who  wish  to  secure  these  benefits  and  extend 
them  beyond  the  actual  present  into  future  genera- 
tions, are  effectually  realising  social,  political  and 
ethical  principles  which  are  highly  commendable  for 
the  good  of  the  community  and  of  mankind.  To 
ensure  such  continuity  of  progress  the  supreme 
exertion  of  self-control,  self-repression  and  altruism  is 
a  highly  virtuous  and  beneficial  activity.  This  does 
not  only  concern  the  individual  members  of  the 
family  and  their  lives  ;  but  even  the  more  abstract 
conception  of  the  solidarity  of  a  family  in  family 
honour,  family  eminence  and  tradition,  tending  to 
carry  on  the  torch  of  social  qualities  and  virtues 
continuously  through  generations  of  men.  But  it 


362  POLITICS 

also  concerns  the  physical  concomitant  of  the  family, 
which  is  the  home.  To  make  that  home  itself  and 
the  atmosphere  which  pervades  it  as  perfect  as 
possible  as  a  centre  of  domestic  and  civic  virtues,  as 
the  focus  of  a  life  of  affection,  beauty  and  refinement, 
and  to  ensure  its  continuance  and  improvement  in 
the  future,  is  one  of  the  highest  and  most  social  as 
well  as  highly  moral  ambitions — provided  always  that 
in  the  attainment  of  eminence  by  the  founder  of  a 
family  and  his  successors,  and  by  the  acquisition  of 
those  physical  means  which  found  the  home  and  endow 
it  with  those  qualities  of  virtue  and  refinement,  no 
unrighteous  or  unsocial  means  be  applied. 

Thus,  eliminating  all  doubtful  or  reprehensible 
means  of  securing  such  continuity  of  noble  effort  and 
higher  traditions  in  the  family,  it  must  be  admitted 
that  in  every  home,  smaller  and  humbler  in  its  nature 
or  larger  and  more  brilliant  in  its  structure  and 
environment,  it  is  a  commendable  social  virtue  on  the 
part  of  the  parents  if,  suppressing  the  call  to  im- 
mediate self-indulgence,  they  practise  thrift  and  even 
self-denial  in  order  to  improve  the  education  of  the 
young  and  their  preparation  for  life,  and  to  improve 
the  conditions  of  the  home. 

Surely  it  can  but  be  commended  if,  from  the  un- 
skilled labourer  upwards  to  the  possessor  of  a  great 
fortune  and  great  traditions,  the  father  puts  by  a 
portion  of  his  earnings  to  give  greater  comfort  and 
security  to  his  wife  and  family,  even  if  he  should  no 
longer  be  there,  and  the  leader  of  industry  or  the 
possessor  of  land  with  a  beautiful  homestead  does 
not  expend  all  his  income  in  costly  forms  of  personal 
amusement,  but  realises  in  every  phase  of  his  life 
his  duty  and  affection  to  his  family,  in  continuing 
and  perpetuating  these  favourable  conditions  which 
in  themselves  produce  efficiency  and  refinement, 
elevation  of  taste  and  the  conduct  which  is  guided 


CONTINUITY  IN  FAMILY  AND  HOME       363 

by  it,  to  those  who  follow  him.  To  plant  trees,  the 
full  growth  of  which  one  cannot  witness  oneself,  but 
which  will  give  shade  and  spread  beauty  for  the 
children  who  are  growing  up  and  for  successive  genera- 
tions that  may  follow,  is  surely  not  evidence  of  a  lower 
instinct,  but  of  that  higher  altruistic  activity  of  the 
best  men,  stimulated  and  directed  by  an  imagination 
realising  the  Best  and  the  perfect  harmony  of  things. 
Surely  it  is  good  policy  for  the  State  to  encourage  such 
activity  on  the  part  of  testators,  whether  the  inheritors 
have  on  their  side  any  claim  to  such  beneficent  action 
or  not.  It  remains  for  the  descendants  of  virtuous 
and  noble  parents  in  every  class  to  avail  themselves  of, 
and  to  profit  by,  the  benefit  which  may  thus  have  been 
bestowed  upon  them,  and  to  pass  on  the  torch  of 
human  perfectibility  and  progress  which  has  been 
placed  in  their  hand.  If  they  fail  to  do  this  and 
cultivate  the  seeds  of  degeneration  until  they  dissolve 
all  the  virtue  transmitted  to  them  by  their  parents 
and  forebears,  they  will,  and  ought  to,  sink  down  in 
the  social  scale  of  citizenship,  and  their  fall  ought  to 
be  the  swifter  and  deeper  because  they  have  spurned 
and  abused  the  blessings  that  were  showered  upon 
them.  Noblesse  oblige  does  not  effectively  apply  to 
a  class  or  a  caste,  but  to  individuals.  The  individual 
must  confirm  and  justify  the  privileges  he  has  received 
and  contribute  his  share  to  continuous  progress.  In 
so  far  the  State  and  well-organised  society  cannot 
recognise  class  or  the  distinctions  of  class  or  of  occu- 
pations. In  a  well-organised  State  every  individual 
in  his  fashion  and  peculiar  capacity  contributes  his 
share  to  the  harmonious  organisation  and  advance 
of  the  community  as  a  whole. 

Though  in  a  perfectly  organised  society,  those 
individuals  possessing  similar  taste,  manners  and 
traditions,  and  modes  of  conduct  and  intercourse,  will 
naturally  and  justly  group  themselves  together,  and 


364  POLITICS 

ought,  in  the  interest  of  human  progress,  thus  to  coa- 
lesce according  to  their  affinities,  this  process  of  natural 
and  social  selection  must  be  based  upon  actual  and  not 
fictitious  social  qualities  and  relationships.  Distinc- 
tions of  class  and  occupation  must  not  be  stereotyped 
nor  galvanised  into  sham  vitality  when  the  soul  of 
corporateness  has  fled  and  its  purpose  vanished.  Static 
symmetry  cannot  be  forced  upon  the  organic  sym- 
metry of  life  ;  for  life  must  be  guided  by  the  aristo- 
tropic  impulse  which  constantly  moves  upwards 
towards  the  Best.  In  a  society  every  member  will 
have  his  distinct  function  arising  out  of  the  real 
aptitudes  acquired  by  heredity  and  education,  but 
as  manifold  and  distinct  as  are  the  complex  indivi- 
dualities in  the  infinitely  diversified  corporate  life  of 
modern  civilised  communities.  All  citizens  (unless  it 
be  the  aged,  who  have  earned  their  right  to  repose,  or 
those  otherwise  incapacitated)  have  their  tasks  and 
their  work  before  them  ;  and  it  is  as  untrue  as  it  is 
absurd  to  try  to  create  a  Labour  Party  and  a  labour 
class  in  which  the  claim  to  the  effective  direction  of 
public  life  is  measured  by  the  degree  in  which 
work  approaches  manual  labour,  and,  ultimately,  even 
the  unskilled  section  of  manual  labour.  In  a  true 
democracy  based  upon  true  liberty  the  organisation 
of  the  State  would  never  be  put  under  the  control  of 
one  class  or  one  group  of  occupations,  but  under  the 
best  individuals  belonging  to  each  and  every  one  of 
the  "  classes  "  and  occupations.  "  Direct  action," 
as  it  is  now  called,  of  one  group  of  citizens,  however 
numerous,  is  as  unreasonable  and  as  unfair,  and  as 
destructive  of  true  liberty  and  progress,  as  was  the 
rule  of  the  most  selfish  oligarchy  or  autocracy.  The 
vicious  results  of  such  a  rule,  were  it  ever  to  dominate 
a  State,  would  only  be  surpassed  when,  should  the 
future  produce  an  effective  confederation  of  all  States, 
the  same  combination  of  separate  interests,  based 


INTERNATIONAL  AND  SUPERNATIONAL      365 

upon  differences  of  occupation,  should  dominate 
such  super-national  councils  and,  through  them,  the 
civilised  world. 


INTERNATIONAL  AND  SUPERNATIONAL  RELATIONS 

We  have  hitherto  been  concerned  with  the  inner 
organisation  of  the  State  in  its  relation  to  the 
citizens.  But  the  same  basic  principles  applying  to 
these  inner  political  relationships  apply  also  to  the 
relations  among  the  several  States  to  one  another — 
the  international  relation  of  States.  As  a  matter  of 
fact  the  whole  conception  of  the  State  as  the  unit  of 
society  is  proving  more  and  more  to  be  insufficient, 
and  one  of  the  great  problems  of  the  future  will  be  its 
gradual  and  normal  modification  and  reformation. 
However  justified  and  beneficent  may  be  that  sense 
of  piety  and  respect  for  all  that  has  gained  a  certain 
moral  right  from  the  fact  that  it  has  been  evolved  in 
the  process  of  human  history,  and  that  it  has  lasted 
for  a  period  which  adds  a  certain  venerable  quality 
to  its  existence  ;  however  much  we  must  cherish  and 
develop  in  us  that  historic  and  distinctly  aesthetic 
sense  of  the  beauty  of  the  maturity  and  age  of  institu- 
tions— provided  always  that  it  does  not  obstinately 
and  nefariously  block  the  way  to  changes  morally 
justified  and  urgently  required  by  the  progress  of 
civilisation — it  is  one  of  the  chief  and  cardinal  duties 
of  States  and  corporate  bodies  to  modify  and  to  reform 
their  constitution  in  the  light  of  their  true  and  original 
aims  and  ultimate  ideals.  When  in  the  direction  of 
their  activity  they  are  far  removed  from  the  course 
which  they  were  originally  intended  to  take  in  order 
to  fulfil  their  destinies  and  have  thus  lost  their  truly 
normal  functions,  and  even  run  contrary  to  their 
primary  purpose,  their  constitution  must  be  revised,  or 


366  POLITICS 

reformed.  Or  if  their  aims  are  no  longer  justified,  they 
must  be  superseded  by  new  corporate  bodies  pursuing 
new  aims  and  ideals.1  The  conception  of  Nationality 
and  the  State,  the  outcome  of  numerous  currents  in 
the  course  of  history,  flowing  from  very  different 
and  even  opposed  channels,  has  become  so  complex 
that  a  thoughtful  world,  suffering  from  these  serious 
inadequacies  in  the  organisation  of  political  and  social 
life,  is  led  to  consider  them  with  a  view  to  reform. 
The  modern  State  may  thus  be  in  immediate  need 
of  change  through  the  peaceful  channels  of  organic 
reform  and  not  the  violent  upheavals  which  sweep 
away  and  destroy  the  good  with  the  bad  and  the 
perfect  with  the  imperfect.  The  fundamental  ele- 
ment of  so-called  "  race  "  (one  of  the  least  definite 
and  scientifically  grounded  conceptions  of  modern 
ethnology  and  sociology,  still  less  of  practical  politics), 
arising  out  of  the  family  and  the  clan,  cannot,  from 
the  point  of  view  of  truth  and  scientific  evidence,  be 
made  the  distinct  and  determining  ground  for  nation- 
ality. The  so-called  racial  distinctions  within  each 
State  only  work  for  evil  when  they  are  made  a  basis 
for  division  among  its  citizens,  and  their  evil  can  only 
be  aggravated  and  intensified  when  to  race  are 
added  sectarian  differences  of  religion,  fused  into  one 
passionate  whole.  The  same,  to  a  considerable 
degree,  applies  to  purely  geographical  differentiation, 
which  has,  moreover,  as  well  as  distinctions  of  race, 
resulted  from  the  fortuitous  conditions  of  succession 
and  inheritance  among  monarchs  and  royal  families. 
Let  us  hope  that  in  the  future  there  will  be  no  further 
need  of  geographical  distinctions  on  purely  strategic 
and  defensive  grounds.  In  short,  the  origin  and 
history  of  many  States  are  based  upon  adventitious 
and  unreasonable  grounds  which  find  no  justification 
in  the  actual  life  and  needs  of  some  modern  com- 

1  See  Patriotism,  chs.  v  and  vi,  p.  87  seq. 


RACIAL   SELF-DETERMINATION  367 

munities.  However  many  moral  and  social  justifica- 
tions there  be  to  consider  the  sentimental  aspirations 
of  large  groups  of  men  resting  upon  their  regard,  love 
and  passion  for  their  real  or  imaginary  racial  origin, 
and  however  supremely  justified  the  claim  of  protec- 
tion of  racial  minorities  within  each  State  may  be,  I 
consider  it  one  of  the  greatest  misfortunes  of  these 
portentous  days  l  that  the  so-called  principle  of  self- 
determination  '  should  to  so  great  a  degree,  if  not 
exclusively,  have  been  based  upon  these  racial 
differences,  and  thus  have  encouraged  and  revived 
racial  antagonisms  throughout  the  whole  world.  This 
disquieting  and  disturbing  problem  of  modern  life, 
when  added  to  the  numerous  other  powerful  move- 
ments in  the  direction  of  change  and  reform  which 
the  present  age  is  calling  for,  in  the  accumulation  of 
all  the  dark  and  threatening  clouds  massing  together 
on  the  horizon  of  civilised  humanity,  bodes  the  possible 
outbreak  of  a  storm  which  may  devastate  all  the  fertile 
fields  of  cultured  life  throughout  the  world,  unless 
the  power  of  truth  and  justice,  directed  by  man's 
striving  after  the  Best,  can  divert  the  forces  which 
justly  move  towards  change  into  the  beneficent 
channels  of  reformation  to  the  blessing  of  future 
generations. 

The  revision  of  our  conception  of  the  State  and  the 
enlargement  of  the  virtue  which  responds  to  the  love 
of  country — patriotism — can  best  be  effected  by  a 
change  in  the  relation  between  the  several  civilised 
States  themselves.  The  fundamental  laws  of  ethics 
on  which  the  mutual  relations  of  the  citizens  to  the 
States  are  based  must  be  applied  effectively  to  the 
relation  between  States. 

We  must  recognise  that  the  times  are  not  yet  ripe 

1  See  Appendix  I,  also  "  Nationality  and  Hyphenism  "  in  The  English- 
speaking  Brotherhood  and  the  League  of  Nations. 
3  Patriotism,  etc. 


368  POLITICS 

for  the  creation  of  one  great  Super-State,  in  which 
the  several  States  are  units,  holding  a  similar  relation 
to  each  other  to  that  which  the  citizens  hold  to  their 
own  State.  It  may  be  even  doubted  whether  such  a 
colossal  organisation,  directing  and  legislating  for 
innumerable  States  spread  over  the  whole  earth,  and 
thus  immediately  governing  groups  of  people  living 
under  totally  different  physical  and  ethnical  condi- 
tions, may  ever  be  possible  or  desirable.  But  that  in 
their  directly  international  relationships,  determined 
by  the  principle  of  pure  justice,  an  active  confedera- 
tion of  Sovereign  States,  retaining  their  internal 
sovereignty,  is  not  only  within  the  range  of  possibility 
and  desirability,  but  has  become  of  direct  and 
supreme  necessity  for  the  maintenance  of  civilised 
life,  must  be  admitted  by  all  right-thinking  men. 
This  consummation,  prepared  by  the  international 
history  of  modern  times,  has  been  brought  home  with 
the  intense  realisation  of  its  urgency  by  the  great 
catastrophe  of  the  past  war,  and  it  must  thus  be 
realised  that  at  least  some  organisation  of  all  civilised 
States  is  absolutely  necessary.  The  mere  fact  that  the 
engines  for  the  destruction  in  mass,  not  only  of  soldiers 
but  of  the  civilian  population  as  well,  have  reached 
such  a  stage  of  annihilating  efficiency  that  all  war 
must  in  the  future  spell  internecine  annihilation  and 
the  extinction  of  civilisation,  makes  such  prevention 
imperative.  Whatever  may  be  the  shortcomings  in 
the  actual  scheme  of  the  League  of  Nations  as  evolved 
at  the  Paris  Conference,  there  can  be  no  doubt  that 
some  such  preventive  organisation  must  be  estab- 
lished in  the  near  future.1  The  establishment  of  a 
supernational  political  body,  ensuring  international 
peace  and  confirming  the  solidarity  of  specific  inter- 
national relations,  will  then,  in  the  progressive  scale 

1  See  Appendix  I,  Th»  English-speaking  Brotherhood  and  the  League 
of  Nations. 


NEED  FOR  A   SUPERNATIONAL  BODY    369 

of  collective  social  life  and  consequent  duties,  as  in 
the  corresponding  duties  of  man's  ethical  and  social 
life,  in  its  turn  produce  in  man  the  love  and  passion 
for  international  patriotism  as  a  further  development 
of  national  patriotism,  without  in  any  way  weaken- 
ing (but  in  fact  strengthening  and   confirming)  this 
political  virtue.1     It  will  in  no  way  hamper  the  free 
development  of  individual  life  within  the  independent 
national   units,  any  more  than  the  enforcement  of 
law  and   of  political  obligations   are  destructive  of 
the  liberty  of  individual  citizens.     But,  as  we  have 
endeavoured  to  show  that  political  equality  before 
the  law  must  be  supplemented  by  the  direct  encour- 
agement of  perfectibility  and  progress   among  indi- 
vidual   citizens,    so    the    ensurance    of   international 
justice    by    a    supernational    body    among   civilised 
nations,  and  guaranteeing  their  equality  before  the  law, 
will  favour  free  development  in  progressive  life  within 
each  State  and  raise  the  standards  for  each  and  all. 
As  the  internal  politics  of  the  individual  State  confirm 
and  develop  for  each  individual  citizen  the  political 
duties  which  he  owes  to  the  State,  so  in  international 
politics  and  by  the  direct  influence  of  a  Supernational 
Body,  man  in  his  moral  life  will  be  carried  still  further, 
still  more  directly  and  potently,  towards  the  realisa- 
tion of  his  duties  to  Humanity. 

I  must  here  express  my  conviction  that  the  so-called 
League  of  Nations,  in  its  present  form — and  also  the 
great  Peace  Conference  of  Washington,  important 
and  highly  commendable  as  some  of  its  results  may 
prove  to  be  in  the  immediate  future — cannot  be 
practically  effective  in  supplying  this  one  supreme 
want  of  our  age.  To  meet  this  need  a  different  body 
and  a  different  organisation  are  required.  The  two 
main  demands  which  the  world  makes  of  such  a  body 

1  Cf.  Patriotism,  National  and  International,  etc. ;  also  Appendix  I  of 
this  book. 

25 


370  POLITICS 

are,  first,  that  it  should  command  the  greatest  con- 
fidence in  its  own  impartiality  which  can  reasonably 
and  practically  be  expected,  and  second,  that  its 
decisions  can  and  must  be  carried  into  effect. 
Neither  of  these  conditions  is  fulfilled  by  the  bodies 
which  have  until  now  been  established. 

The  whole  civilised  world  is  far  removed  from 
placing  anything  approaching  to  implicit  confidence 
in  the  decisions  of  the  League  of  Nations  as  at  present 
organised.  To  attain  this  end,  in  the  first  instance, 
negatively,  all  doubt  and  suspicion  of  the  continuance 
of  the  traditions  and  practices  of  the  old  regime  of 
secrecy,  "  manoeuvring  for  position,"  etc.,  of  the  old 
diplomacy  as  practised  by  the  interested  Great  or 
Lesser  Powers  acting  in  their  own  l  interest  must  be 
removed.  Since  1898  I  have  ventured  positively  to 
construct  the  outlined  organisation  of  such  a  body, 
which  must  take  the  form  of  a  Super  national  Jury 
backed  by  a  Supernational  Police.  Such  a  jury  must 
be  composed  of  a  fixed  (though  large)  number  of 
delegates  from  each  constituent  State,  represented 
according  to  numbers  of  inhabitants,  with  a  maximum 
and  minimum  number  for  the  largest  and  smallest 
States,  without  any  mandate  beyond  the  solemn 
pledge  to  decide  according  to  justice  and  reason, 
and  not  to  act  in  the  interests  of  their  own  State. 
A  juridical  tribunal  or  supreme  court  is  neither 
practical  nor  at  present  practicable.  For  there  exists 
no  Code  of  International  Law,  with  due  sanction,  for 
such  judges  to  interpret.  The  history  of  the  English 
Common  Law  ought  to  teach  us  that  something  of 
the  nature  of  a  jury  naturally  preceded  the  establish- 
ment of  the  Judiciary  and  the  approach  to  the  codifica- 
tion of  fixed  Laws.  Out  of  the  process  and  practice 
of  a  long  series  of  decisions  by  such  a  Supernational 
Jury,  whose  decisions  will  be  based  on  equity  tem- 

1  See  Appendix  I. 


SUPERNATIONAL  JURY  AND  POLICE     371 

pered  by  a  compromise  of  common  sense  and  common 
fairness,  the  International  Law  to  be  interpreted  by 
the  Judiciary  may  ultimately  be  evolved.  The  time 
is  not  ripe  for  an  International  Tribunal  of  Jurists. 

But  the  decisions  of  such  a  Supernational  Jury 
must  be  purely  academic  and  ineffectual  unless 
backed  by  power.  It  must  have  a  Police  Force. 
Such  a  Force,  however,  must  not  consist  of  separate 
quotas  from  each  nation  supposed  to  act  in  concert 
with  each  other — even  against  their  own  nationals  ; 
but  must  be  enlisted  from  all  nationalities  among 
those  who  naturally  and  by  preference  choose  the 
profession  of  arms  and  form  a  new  military  body  owing 
sole  allegiance  to  the  Supernational  body.  From 
pruely  economical  and  practical  reasons  it  must  now 
be  admitted  that  some  form  of  "  pooling  "  for  the 
establishment  of  international  security  and  national 
independence  is  absolutely  necessary. 


We  have  thus  seen  that  politics  ought  to  be  con- 
cerned with  the  production  of  the  Best  Government 
and  the  Best  State,  in  order  to  develop  the  Best 
Citizens  leading  the  Best  Lives.  These  Best  Citizens 
and  their  Best  Life  is  the  central  organism  holding  its 
relation  to  the  social  environment  as  expressed  in  the 
political  organism  called  "  State,  "  with  its  existing 
laws,  customs  and  traditions.  Through  legislation 
this  process  of  adaptation  leads  to  the  continuous 
improvement  of  the  environment.  Yet  in  this  inter- 
relation we  have  continuous  action  and  reaction. 
More  directly  through  education  and  through  all 
public  institutions  under  the  control  of  the  State, 
the  citizens  themselves  are  to  be  directly  advanced 
and  improved,  and  this  moral  and  intellectual 
advancement  can  create  new  needs  and  new  demands 
for  change  and  progress  in  the  physical  environment 


372  POLITICS 

within  each  State,  so  that  organism  and  environment 
are  harmonious,  the  active  power  ensuring  that  the 
harmony  is  progressive  in  its  nature,  striving  towards 
the  Best  with  the  ultimate  aim  of  the  most  perfect 
State  and  the  most  perfect  social  life  which  each 
period  can  in  its  turn  conceive,  and  all  leading  up  to 
the  final  ideals  of  life,  of  mind  and  of  the  universe, 
manifesting  themselves  in  the  human  mind  through 
religion.  But  in  this  sphere  of  thought,  as  in  ethics, 
pragmatics  and  aesthetics,  as  well  as  in  philosophy 
and  science,  we  must  establish  above  all  things  a 
clear  understanding  of  the  highest  political  con- 
sciousness of  our  own  age,  as  we  must  realise  the 
principle  of  evolution  which  has  led  up  to  it  ;  while, 
at  the  same  time,  we  must  never  forget  that  this 
evolution,  dependent  upon  the  design  and  reasonable 
activity  of  man,  must  in  turn  stimulate  our  aristo- 
tropic  activities  in  holding  before  our  imagination  as 
a  future  goal  the  well-reasoned  upward  steps  which 
bring  us  nearer  to  perfection.  It  must  therefore 
always  be  through  conscious,  and  not  through  fatalis- 
tic, evolution  that  progress  in  man's  life  and  in  the 
institutions  which  he  creates  is  brought  about. 


CHAPTER  VI 

RELIGION 

THE  culmination,  the  coping-stone  (0/017*09),  of  this 
structure  of  human  life  and  mind  is  to  be  found  in 
Religion. 

We  have  seen  hi  the  Second  Chapter  of  the  First 
Part  of  this  book  that  in  the  Infinite  (the  infinitely 
small  and  the  infinitely  great)  asymmetry  is  dissolved 
into  symmetry.  Thus  in  this  scale  of  relativity  the 
harmoniotropic  and  aristotropic  principles  and  instincts 
must  lead  to  the  Perfect  and  the  Best  in  Life  and  in 
living  and  spiritual  beings.  No  doubt  the  saying  of 
Xenophanes  (that,  if  lions  or  negroes  conceived  of 
divinity,  he  would  take  the  form  of  the  most  beautiful 
lion  or  a  black  and  flat-nosed  being)  is  true,  but  it  is 
conceivable  that  the  inhabitants  on  some  other  planet 
might  rise  much  higher  than  terrestrial  human  beings 
in  the  conception  of  their  All-Perfect  and  Best. 
Within  this  relativity,  however,  the  principle  of 
Harmony  remains  absolute,  and  within  all  this  variety 
and  change  the  aristotropic  principle  and  force 
remain  the  same. 

We  have  also  seen  in  the  chapter  on  Epistemology, 
that  somewhere  in  our  consciousness,  varying  in 
the  degree  of  consciousness  or  subconsciousness,  the 
perfect  image  of  every  act,  thought,  or  feeling  is  in 
our  mind  whenever  we  act,  think,  or  feel. 

Now  it  is  with  the  relation  between  this  life,  with 
all  its  imperfections  and  limitations,  to  the  Ideal 
World^and  Life  and  Being  that  Religion  is  concerned  ; 

373 


374  RELIGION 

and  we  are  religious  in  the  degree  in  which  ideals  are 
real  to  us. 

Evolution,  which  in  its  established  or  reasonable 
forms,  was,  until  quite  recently,  supposed  to  be 
inimical  to  religion,  necessarily  leads  to  religion.  It 
does  this  through  the  idea  of  progress,  in  contra- 
distinction to  lifeless  stagnation  or  retrogression  and 
decline,  or  by  replacing  the  blind  Survival  of  the 
Fittest,  which  throughout  nature  rests  upon  strife- 
strife,  moreover,  in  which  the  physically  or  "  acci- 
dentally "  strongest  must  survive.  This  physically 
and  accidentally  strongest  is  not  necessarily  the  best, 
and  from  some  points  of  view  may  be  the  worst.  In 
the  movement  of  the  world  and  of  life,  and  especially 
in  that  aspect  of  these  which  is  capable  of  being 
affected  by  the  activity  of  man,  the  aristotropic 
element  is  ignored  in  the  purely  biological  and 
observational  conception  of  the  Survival  of  the 
Fittest  in  nature.  When,  however,  the  aristotropic 
element  is  coupled  with  the  conception  of  Harmonism 
and  with  the  principle  of  Conscious  Evolution  which 
tends  towards  the  best,  as  conceived  by  the  human 
mind  in  every  period  of  its  own  evolution,  we  are  led 
to  strive  for  some  ideal  conception — again  varying 
with  the  growth  of  each  period — of  the  Best  World, 
the  Best  Life,  the  Highest  Justice  and  Happiness, 
Consummate  Goodness  and  Beauty.  This  mental 
activity  leads  to  religion. 

The  enemy  and  the  opposite  of  the  Best  World,  the 
Best  Life,  etc. — the  worst  world  and  the  worst  life, 
where  injustice,  hatred  and  strife  rule — is  the  dis- 
solving negative  spirit,  the  spirit  of  hate.  It  is  the 
Mephistopheles  of  Goethe.  Therefore  Plato,  as  a 
philosophical  forerunner  of  Christ,  is  the  apostle 
of  love ;  both  are  the  great  teachers  and  founders  of 
religion,  even  to  those  who  may  reject  the  dogmatic 
and  historical  foundations  of  the  churches.  Their 


NATURAL  PROGRESSION  TO  RELIGION    375 

religion  culminates  in  the  conception  of  a  rule  of  God 
and  not  of  a  Devil.  It  is  the  religion  of  love  and 
not  of  hatred,  of  love  between  men  and  all  the  animate 
world,  and  even  in  the  inanimate  world,  the  love  of 
Beauty  and  of  Truth — of  the  ultimate  Best,  of 
ultimate  Perfection,  of  ultimate  Harmony. 

The  harmoniotropic  and  aristotropic  principles  and 
instincts  of  themselves  lead  us  to  hope  and  to  strive 
for  that  complete  harmony  where  the  Best  is  attained 
and  consummated.  When  we  apply  this  to  our 
conception  of  the  universe  and  of  human  life  as  a 
whole  our  every  single  experience  informs  us  that  this 
cannot  be  attained  in  our  actual  life,  though  we 
approach  nearest  to  it  in  the  highest  abstract  science, 
as  well  as  in  the  highest  art,  the  worlds  of  pure  theory 
and  truth  and  pure  imaginative  creativeness  and 
beauty ;  but  we  are  equally  assured  that  such 
perfect  harmony  and  the  realisation  of  the  Best 
belongs  to  the  Infinite,  which  cannot  be  fully  con- 
ceived or  realised  in  the  human  mind. 

We  have  noted  in  the  origin  of  sense-perception 
that  symmetry  is  contrasted  with  asymmetry,  and 
that  our  perception,  as  well  as  the  subsequent  mental 
stages  of  more  advanced  human  reasoning,  are  based 
upon  symmetry  or  regularity,  and  we  have  established 
the  fact  that  in  the  subsequent  development  of  man's 
mental  powers  the  highest  conceptions  of  Truth,  of 
Beauty  and  of  Goodness  rest  on  the  same  principle. 
But,  as  we  also  noted  above,  we  have  seen  at  that 
early  stage  of  our  inquiry  into  the  purely  elementary 
phases  of  sense-perception  that  the  asymmetrical 
forms  which  we  contrasted  with  the  symmetrical 
bodies  become  symmetrical  when  we  leave  the  sphere 
of  the  Finite  and  of  the  limitations  of  the  human 
senses  and  mental  faculties  and  ascend  towards  the 
Infinite.  By  anticipation  I  then  pointed  to  the  deep 
significance  of  this  fact  when  applied  to  the  meta- 


376  RELIGION 

physical  principles  in  the  domain  of  Religion.     In 

analysing  the  nature  of  an  asymmetrical  body  we 

discovered  that,  by  reducing  it  to  the  smallest  compass 

or  by  increasing  it  to  its  highest  power,  its  irregularity 

and  asymmetry  vanish  and  more  and  more  approach 

to  a  regular  or  symmetrical  body.     In  the  degree  in 

which  it  thus  approached  symmetrical  harmony  did 

it  lose  its  asymmetry,  its  discordant  characteristics. 

This   undeniable  fact  is  not  merely  of  importance 

symbolically,  as  vaguely  suggesting  the  true  nature 

of  the  mind,  but  actually  as  containing  the  principle 

of    all   thought   and    existence.     It  is  through  this 

principle,  as  it  governs  the  processes  of  thought  and 

of  human  striving  and  ultimately  of  nature  and  the 

universe  itself,  that  the  mind  rises  from  the  simple 

sense-perception  to  the  realisation  of  order  and  law, 

in  contradistinction  to  accident,  disaster  and  anarchy 

in  nature,  to  Truth,  Goodness  and  Beauty,  to  Justice 

and  Charity,  and  to  the  ultimate  dominance  of  these. 

Leaving  these  elementary  phases  of  sense-percep- 
tion and  advancing  to  the  formation  of  concepts  and 
to  the  whole  process  of  ratiocination  or  reasoning,  on 
which  rests  the  conception  of  all  truth,  we  have  seen 
how  from  every  association  these  rest  upon  that 
power  of  imagining  with  greater  or  less  clearness  in 
the  Fully  Conscious,  or  Subconscious,  the  perfect 
image  or  consummation  of  every  truth  we  conceive, 
every  form  we  appreciate  as  form  or  desire  to  repro- 
duce, every  act  which  stimulates  our  mind,  or  our 
will  to  satisfy  our  needs,  our  desires  and  our  ideals. 
The  stimulation  to  our  activities,  whether  in  thought 
or  in  action,  is  the  attainment  of  this  perfect  realisa- 
tion of  our  design  or  end  presented  by  our  imagination 
or  by  the  direct  activity  of  our  emotions  or  moods  ; 
and  though  the  full  realisation  of  this  perfect  image  of 
consummation  may  never  be  attained,  there  always 
rests  somewhere  within  the  mind  the  primary  con  vie- 


INFINITE  HARMONY  377 

tion  that  somewhere  or  sometime  this  full  harmony 
between  the  real  and  the  ideal  can  be  attained. 
Even  in  the  most  impossible  images  or  aims  of  an 
imagination  running  riot  so  as  to  desire  by  thought  or 
act  what  our  actual  physical  experience  teaches  us  to 
be  impossible  in  view  of  our  finite  capacities  and  the 
finite  world  about  us,  there  is  still  implied  the  possi- 
bility that  somewhere,  in  the  infinite  world  beyond  the 
physical  limitation  of  our  surroundings,  or  of  human 
capacity,  such  desires  and  aims  can  be  consummated. 
This  would  apply  even  to  things  much  more 
"  impossible  "  than  "  to  put  a  girdle  about  the  earth 
in  forty  minutes,"  or  flying  to  Mars. 

When  thus  our  thoughts  turn  to  life  as  a  whole 
and  to  our  world  as  a  whole,  we  can  conceive — and 
what  is  more,  we  can  and  do  long  for — a  perfect  life 
and  a  perfect  world,  in  contradistinction  to  the  im- 
perfect life  and  world  in  which  we  actually  exist.  In 
this  world  of  imagination  the  real  and  the  ideal  type 
are  fused  into  harmony  ;  causality  and  teleology, 
necessity  and  freedom,  liberty  and  authority,  striving 
and  power,  justice  and  charity  are  all  harmonised, 
and  hatred  is  dissolved  in  love. 

Our  senses  and  the  experience  dependent  upon  them 
cannot  grasp  this  infinite  consummation,  nor  even 
our  intellectual  functions  which  demand  the  convic- 
tion which  rests  upon  proven  truth.  But  our  sane 
imagination,  saturated  with,  and  guided  by,  the 
harmonious  process  of  reason,  can  soar  upwards 
towards  the  Infinite  and  can  fill  our  emotions  and 
our  highest  moods  with  hope  and  with  love  for  this 
supreme  harmony  and  beauty.  Yet  in  every  phase 
of  this  flight  towards  our  highest  ideal  we  must  be 
directed  by  the  Harmony  of  Reason,  of  Goodness 
and  of  Beauty,  and  not  be  turned  aside  or  back- 
wards by  discordant  untruth  to  what  is  irrational 
and  unharmonious. 


378  RELIGION 

Still,  we  must  be  aware  of  the  fact  that  this  high 
imagination  and  true  "  enthusiasm  "  are  powers  of 
the  human  mind,  of  the  human  soul  or  psyche,  and 
that  thus,  however  swift  and  lofty  our  metaphysical 
and  religious  flight,  it  is  limited  by  the  psychological 
conditions  of  the  human  mind.  Though  we  find  the 
harmonistic  principle  within  nature  and  its  laws, 
unaffected  by  the  human  mind,  and  far  beyond  this 
earth,  guiding  the  infinite  constellations  of  the  uni- 
verse, the  principles  which  we  thus  recognise,  the 
design  and  ideal  which  we  project  and  long  for,  can- 
not transcend  those  of  the  human  mind.  It  is  thus 
that  our  imagination  is  driven  to  some  conception  of 
a  spirit,  analogous  and  in  principle  of  the  same  nature 
as  the  human  mind  in  its  loftiest  potentiality,  though 
far  beyond  the  mind  of  man  in  the  sphere  of  infinity, 
which  he  cannot  conceive.  It  is  thus  that  man  can 
only  approach  these  spheres  of  harmony  through  his 
emotional  moods,  filled  by  his  highest  rational  and 
aesthetic  imagination  and  vitalised  by  the  spirit  of 
love.  But  here  again  it  is  the  supreme  duty  of 
man,  as  a  rational  and  moral  being,  to  guard  against 
those  deviations  or  retrogressions  in  his  upward  flight 
into  the  backward  or  downward  direction  of  the 
irrational  or  the  lower  stages  of  his  mental  and 
spiritual  development  in  the  past.  Above  all  must 
he  guard  against  that  anthropomorphic  tendency 
which  imposes  finite  limitations  upon  the  infinite 
conception  of  perfect  ideal  harmony  by  an  anthropo- 
morphic and  superstitious  conception  of  a  Deity  l 

1  It  is  here  that  all  men  will  differ  in  the  degrees  in  which  their  con- 
ception of  the  Infinite  Ideal  and  Ideal  Life,  the  Summum  bonum,  the 
Divinity,  takes  a  personal  form.  By  its  very  nature  infinity  cannot  be 
definitely  conceived  by  the  finite  mind.  On  the  other  hand,  our 
imagination  and  our  emotional  moods,  rising  on  the  lines  of  rational 
and  aesthetic  progression  upwards,  lead  us  in  such  a  quasi-aesthetic 
emotional  state  to  what  Plato  has  called  the  eros,  and  even  Spinoza 
has  called  the  amor  dei — into  that  state  which  the  Greeks  in  the  term 


PSYCHOLOGICAL  LIMITATIONS  379 

which  marked  the  lower  stages  in  the  evolution  of 
the  human  mind  from  its  quasi-animal  conditions 
upwards. 

"  enthusiasm  "  have  literally  called  being  "  filled  with  God."  In  order 
that  we  should  feel  with  real  intensity  this  love  and  passion  for  the 
True,  the  Good  and  the  Beautiful,  there  must  inevitably,  from  the  very 
conception  of  our  nature,  be  something  of  the  interposition  of  love 
towards  some  Being.  Adhering  to  the  supreme  duty  to  truth  in  self- 
questioning  and  without  any  self-deception,  I  must  confess  that  I  have 
not  attained  that  degree  of  certainty  and  conviction  which  enables  me 
to  formulate  my  conception  of  a  personal  divinity  with  anything 
approaching  to  clearness — a  state  of  mind  which  also  applies  to  the 
belief  in  personal  immortality.  I  am  thus  unable  intellectually  to 
ascend  beyond  the  emotional  and  aesthetic  state,  tending  towards  the 
infinite  Best  and  in  moments  of  rational  and  aesthetic  exaltation  to 
strive  towards  or  hope  for  such  an  ultimate  perfect  Being,  however 
much  the  power  of  analytical  functions  of  the  intellect  may  oppose 
themselves  to  the  lowering  conception  of  a  Being  analogous  to  man 
himself. 

In  the  same  sense,  while  realising  all  the  cogent  and  forceful  argu- 
ments against  personal  immortality  after  the  human  body  and  the 
organs  of  sentience  and  thought  have  been  dissolved,  and  especially 
in  consideration  of  the  changes  in  personality  when  mental  disease 
has  ended  in  insanity,  I  still  cannot  conceive  myself  that  the  element 
of  personality,  the  ego,  of  the  mental  and  spiritual  character  of  the 
individual,  so  potent  in  its  unity  in  modifying  its  own  life  and  in 
acting  upon  the  outer  world,  is  merely  a  congeries,  a  collocation,  of 
physical  organs  and  atoms,  and  that  this  unity  has  no  ultimate  exis- 
tence as  such.  Here  too,  on  the  basis  of  physical  and  mental  experi- 
ences and  throughout  life,  my  perfectly  rationalistic  emotional  nature 
and  imagination  lead  me  to  tend  towards,  and  to  hope  for,  some  form 
of  personal  immortality,  which,  however,  I  dare  not  accurately  define 
in  anything  approaching  to  physical  terms.  It  is  important  and  cogent 
to  remember  that  the  IJ.TI  6v,  non-existence,  of  things  supremely  and 
vitally  extant  in  the  lives  of  the  individual  from  infancy  upwards, 
has  ever  been  one  of  the  most  difficult  conceptions  of  the  developing 
human  mind,  especially  when  applied  to  parents  or  children.  It  was 
no  doubt  owing  to  this  difficulty  of  believing  that  those  beings  who 
in  earliest  childhood  were  the  most  real  objects  and  sources  of  all 
experiences  for  the  infant  should  no  longer  exist,  that  the  primitive 
mind  fashioned  its  animistic  religious  beliefs  in  the  survival  of  the 
departed  ancestors  and  in  their  presence  or  return  in  various  forms 
of  actual  influence  within  their  own  natural  surroundings. 

The  inner  history  of  every  religious  sect  in  the  past  of  humanity 
and  the  comparative  study  of  sects,  religious  beliefs,  and  superstitions 
(though  all  of  them  manifest  in  their  rites  and  ceremonies  outer 
forms  to  stimulate  the  imagination  and  the  emotions  in  their  super- 


380  RELIGION 

It  is  thus  that  the  different  ages  and  races  of  men 
present  an  infinite  variety  in  the  degrees  in  which 
their  imagination  leads  them  in  the  religious  flight 
of  their  harmoniotropic  and  aristotropic  faculties 
and  especially  in  their  conception  of  God.  We  must 
again  recall  the  saying  of  Xenophanes.  Even  in  our 
own  days,  as  people  differ  in  their  senses  and  their 
standards  of  dimension  influenced  by  their  habitual 
experiences,  conceiving  the  moon  as  being  of  the 
size  of  a  threepenny-bit,  sixpence,  a  shilling,  half-a- 
crown,  crown,  and  even  a  bass  drum,  so  they  differ 
in  their  intellectual  and  moral  capacities  as  these 
affect  their  imagination  in  conceiving  the  dimensions 
and  the  moral  qualities  of  things  without  and  within. 
Here  too  there  are  those  who  actually  conceive  the 
Divinity,  in  what  they  suppose  to  be  the  spiritual 
flights  of  their  religious  imaginations,  by  the  standards 
of  sixpence,  a  shilling,  and  other  coins,  while  there 
are  those  who  can  place  no  marketable  value  upon 
their  highest  conceptions  of  things  divine  and  of  the 
divinity  itself. 

Thus  the  principle  of  conscious  evolution,  moved 
and  directed  by  the  harmoniotropic  and  aristotropic 
forces  of  the  human  mind,  leads  us  ultimately  towards 
the  conception  of  an  Ideal  Life  and  an  Ideal  Universe. 

natural  flight  towards  the  Infinite)  illustrate  this  gradual  advance 
from  the  lower  to  the  higher.  Many  of  the  superstitions  from  unde- 
veloped or  barbarous  ages  survive  in  the  ritual,  and  are  even  embodied 
as  dogmas,  in  the  creeds  of  far  more  advanced  religions.  To  convert 
such  lower  survivals  into  the  actual  life  of  religious  faith  is  a  Sin  against 
Truth,  against  the  Holy  Ghost — for  in  our  highest  beliefs  there  must 
not  be  any  compromise. 


CHAPTER  VII 

EDUCATIONAL   EPILOGUE 

HARMONIOUS  proportion  in  the  human  faculties  and 
their  functioning  in  life  ;  perfect  physical  health  and 
the  co-ordination  of  the  forces  of  the  soul  and  body  ; 
mens  sana  in  corpore  sano — these  are,  or  ought  to  be, 
the  main  objectives  of  all  education. 

As  in  the  perfect  Greek  athletic  type  all  parts  of 
the  body,  in  due  organic  relationship  and  harmony 
to  each  other  and  to  the  whole,  are  combined  into  life, 
so  in  the  soul  of  man  should  all  faculties  be  har- 
monised. If  the  arms,  legs,  the  chest,  or  other 
members  are  by  themselves  developed  out  of  pro- 
portion to  the  whole,  they — and  through  them  the 
entire  body — present  an  anomaly,  a  disfigurement, 
and  may  produce  almost  a  cripple.  Their  function- 
ings  are  accordingly  disturbed  and  impaired.1 

On  the  same  principle  our  soul's  forces,  our  charac- 
ter, our  intelligence,  our  mental,  moral  and  social 
activities  must  be  regulated  into  perfect  harmony.1 
No  one  of  them,  nor  its  functioning,  must  be  allowed 

1  I  remember  many  years  ago  travelling  on  an  ocean  steamer  with  the 
then  champion  professional  sculler,  Hanlan.  In  conversation  I  asked 
him  whether  he  had  a  "  coach  "  or  trainer.  He  informed  me  that  he 
had  none  ;  but  "  coached  "  himself  and  applied  to  his  self-coaching  the 
following  simple  and  highly  efficient  principle :  "I  simply  scull  and 
scull,"  he  said  ;  "  but  I  pay  sharp  attention  as  to  which  part  of  my 
body  tires  first.  If  it  be  my  back,  my  arms,  my  fore-arm,  my  legs, 
my  calf,  even  my  hands  or  my  ringers,  I  know  that  I  am  using  that 
part  of  my  body  too  much,  and  I  try  to  use  it  less — until  at  last  the 
whole  of  my  body  is  equally  tired  at  the  end." 

1  See  Balance  of  Emotion  and  Intellect.     London,  1878. 


382  EDUCATIONAL  EPILOGUE 

to  atrophise,  or  hypertrophise.  As  regards  even  our 
inherited  temperament,  which  underlies  character, 
we  must  endeavour,  in  the  education  of  the  young 
and  in  the  self-training  of  the  adult,  to  counteract 
the  undue  predominance  of  the  one  tendency  over  the 
other  in  order  to  produce  harmony  between  both. 
Thus  excessively  passionate,  imaginative,  over- 
affectionate  and  erotic  tendencies  are  to  be  counter- 
acted by  sober  intellectual  training  in  exact  methods 
of  thought,  concentration,  and  analysis  ;  as  over- 
intellectual,  cold-blooded  and  unloving  dispositions 
are  to  be  encouraged  and  stimulated  in  demonstrative 
affection  and  in  all  that  makes  for  synthesis  and 
imagination. 

In  our  actual  life  the  same  principle  of  Harmony  is 
to  be  enforced  in  all  its  aspects.  First  in  the  sub- 
division of  our  Life  of  Work  and  our  Life  of  Play. 
These  two  phases  of  our  normal  existence  as  moral 
and  social  beings  must  harmoniously  blend  in  the 
beauty  of  their  balanced  proportion.  The  sense  of 
Duty,  the  power  of  concentration  on  the  work  that  is 
predestined  within  us  in  the  natural  aptitudes  of  our 
personality,  and  the  place  which,  through  our 
personality  and  our  personal  environment,  as  well 
as  the  definite  demands  which  the  harmoniously 
regulated  conditions  of  the  actual  society  in  which 
we  live  impose  upon  us  for  the  prosperity  of  the  com- 
munity— this  sense  of  duty  and  this  concentrated 
and  efficient  work  must  above  all  be  encouraged  and 
developed.  So  also  our  self-control,  our  repression 
of  the  constant  obtrusion  and  all-powerful  instinct 
of  self-indulgence  and  all-pervading  self-seeking,  must 
negatively  prepare  the  way  for  that  moral  and  social 
altruism  which  must  pervade  our  active  and  emotive 
energy  and  should  be  converted  into  charity,  love  and 
sympathy.  But  this  must  in  no  way  lead  us  to  a 
purely  negative  and  repressive  ideal,  which  disfavours 


BALANCE  OF  WORK  AND  PLAY  383 

our  natural  and  highly  moral  striving  for  "  self- 
effectuation  "  and  pleasure.  On  the  contrary,  there 
exists  in  a  perfect  world  a  clear  Duty  to  Pleasure. 
Asceticism  is  distinctly  immoral — it  presumes  an 
envious  and  unloving  demon  instead  of  a  benevolent 
and  loving  God. 

We  have  seen  (in  Part  I,  p.  67)  how  the  Life  of 
Play  is  naturally  subdivided  into  its  physical  and 
mental  aspects,  the  one  producing  our  athletic  games 
and  pastimes,  the  other  Art  and  its  enjoyment. 
Educationally  the  greatest  mistake  is  made  by 
parents  and  teachers  when  they  assume  that  the 
instinct  which  makes  for  play  and  recreation  is 
sufficiently  strong  in  the  nature  of  the  young  to  "  look 
after  itself,"  if  not  to  be  repressed  and  kept  in  bounds. 
Ignoring  or  repressing  a  force  which  is  elemental  and 
an  essential  part  of  an  organism  which  cannot  and 
need  not  be  atrophied,  leads  to  its  congestion,  and 
as  with  natural  and  mechanical  forces  when  com- 
pressed beyond  a  certain  degree  may  produce  spon- 
taneous combustion  destructive  in  its  effect  ;  whereas 
when  directed  into  proper  channels  it  may  be  turned 
to  beneficent  uses.  So  too  the  constant  repression  of 
the  instinct  for  pleasure  may  lead  to  secret  or  violent 
outbursts  harmful  in  themselves  and  degrading  to 
character  and  life.  On  the  contrary,  parents  and 
teachers  must  not  ignore,  but  take  an  active  part  in, 
the  amusements  of  the  young  and  positively  direct 
them  into  the  channels  which  ennoble  while  refreshing, 
and  contribute  to  physical  and  moral  health  and  to 
the  refinement  of  taste.  But  great  care  must  be  taken 
that  such  positive  guidance  be  not  of  the  magisterial 
order  of  the  drill-sergeant,  robbing  the  spirit  of  play 
of  freedom  and  spontaneity,  which  are,  as  we  have 
seen,  essential  to  its  very  composition  and  life. 

But  our  educational  aim  on  the  work  side  must 
also  be  to  convert  even  our  exacting  and  stern  duties 


384  EDUCATIONAL  EPILOGUE 

into  pleasures  ;  to  evoke  joy  in  our  own  work  and  in 
our  charitable  attitude  towards  mankind. 

There  can  be  no  doubt  that  in  the  successful  appli- 
cation of  an  educational  method  which  succeeds  in 
arousing  the  joy  of  learning,  instruction  becomes 
more  effective.  Children  in  whom  interest  in  what 
they  learn  is  aroused,  so  that  what  they  are  taught  is 
received,  not  mechanically,  without  the  stimulation  of 
their  emotive  faculties  (or,  if  moved,  the  emotion  is 
one  of  displeasure  and  opposition),  but  in  whom 
pleasure  is  aroused,  or  even  enthusiasm  for  what  they 
learn  and  understand  fully,  will  undoubtedly  learn 
more  readily  and  more  thoroughly,  and  retain  what 
they  have  learnt,  through  the  impression  which  has 
sunk  into  the  depths  of  their  emotional  nature. 
Beyond  this  also  it  must  be  remembered  by  educa- 
tionists that  a  further  valuable  asset  has  been 
bestowed  upon  the  mental  and  moral  nature  of  their 
pupils  and  upon  the  whole  of  their  life  in  every  age 
and  every  one  of  its  aspects.  For  they  may  thus 
have  received,  and  been  enriched  by,  that  great 
boon  and  source  of  moral  wealth  to  be  found  in 
intellectual  pleasure  and  recreation  (in  the  literal 
meaning  of  that  term)  to  which  we  have  referred 
above  in  dealing  with  the  play  side  of  life.  And  this 
will  be  the  more  so  the  less  the  subjects  in  which 
interest  and  love  have  been  aroused  are  immediately 
connected  with  the  life-work  and  duties  of  those  who 
have  been  intellectually  enriched.  I  have  for  many 
years  impressed  upon  our  labouring  population,  as 
well  as  on  young  people  of  all  classes,  the  importance 
of  providing  themselves  with  a  "  hobby,"  especially 
one  of  a  higher  intellectual  and  moral  character  which 
ennobles  and  elevates,  besides  affording  recreation 
and  amusement.  I  have  held  before  them  the 
picture  of  the  aged,  or  those  unable  to  work  through 
ill-health,  who  have  nothing  to  fall  back  on  to  keep 


INDIVIDUALITY  385 

their  mental  health  and  interest  alive,  who  ultimately 
become  a  burden  to  themselves  and  those  about  them, 
as  contrasted  with  the  peaceful  and  happy  existence 
of  the  old  man  or  woman  who  has  a  perennial  source 
of  interest  in  some  intellectual  or  artistic  pursuit,  in 
the  absorbing  work  of  collecting  or  classifying  any 
objects  or  facts,  or  even  in  the  reading  of  novels. 

Such  methods  of  tuition  have,  especially  of  late 
years,  been  successfully  applied  by  those  who  follow 
a  definite  system  and  theory  of  education,  chiefly 
associated  with  the  name  of  Dr.  Montessori.  The 
upholders  of  this  theory  rightly  maintain  that  the 
aim  is  above  all  to  be  educative  in  the  literal  accepta- 
tion of  that  term,  i.e.  to  lead  out  or  to  draw  out  the 
latent  faculties  in  the  child,  and  not  indifferently  to 
infuse  the  subject-matter  to  be  taught,  irrespective 
of  the  individual  receptivity  of  the  child,  which  latter 
method  fails  to  teach  or  to  stimulate,  and  may  even 
produce  opposition  and  disgust.  There  is  no  doubt  a 
deep  and  practical  truth  in  this  main  thesis,  and  we 
may  at  once  admit  that  all  ideal  methods  would  be 
educative  in  this  sense,  and  even  that  in  all  teaching, 
as  far  as  this  is  possible,  the  individuality  of  the  pupil 
is  to  be  considered  and  the  teaching  modified  accord- 
ingly. Above  all,  what  we  might  call  the  emotional 
receptivity  in  the  mentality  of  the  learner  is  an 
"  asset  "  of  supreme  value  and  can,  or  ought,  never 
to  be  dispensed  with.  At  the  same  time,  however, 
I  am  convinced  that  this  importance  of  "  indi- 
viduality "  and  "  personality  "  is  greatly  exaggerated. 
Personality  is  not  an  ultimately  static  unit.  On  the 
contrary,  it  is,  perhaps,  the  chief  function  of  all 
education  to  develop  it  in  the  right  way  and  towards 
higher  normality  or  a  generally  admitted  ideal. 
Individuality  can  be  changed,  and,  at  all  events, 
developed  ;  and  the  main  direction  in  which  it  is 
thus  to  be  developed  is  towards  the  normality  and 
26 


386  EDUCATIONAL   EPILOGUE 

harmony  which  we  have  advocated  above.  Other- 
wise the  danger  is  always  imminent  of  limiting  our 
positive  education  to  the  "  aptitudes,"  and  even  the 
preferences  or  "  likings,"  which  we  happen  to  find 
in  the  pupil  and,  exaggerating  those  faculties  and 
activities  to  the  neglect  of  others  which  are  essential 
to  the  normal  human  and  social  being,  mentally 
and  morally,  by  such  neglect  to  produce  what 
physically  we  have  called  a  "  cripple."  Moreover, 
though  I  heartily  agree  with  the  need  of  producing 
positively  what  might  be  called  the  joy  of  learning 
and  the  spontaneity  of  action,  free  from  all  negative 
and  distasteful  injunctions  and  constraint,  there  can 
be  no  doubt  that,  far  from  asceticism  or  moral 
"  Rigorism,"  the  sense  of  duty,  of  self-control  and 
even  of  self-restraint  must  be  taught  by  injunction 
and  by  practice.  Without  fear  of  paradox,  a  theory 
of  education  might  be  upheld,  and  convincing  argu- 
ments adduced  in  its  support,  which  maintains  that 
we  ought  to  search  for  and  to  detect  those  wants  and 
deficiencies  in  every  child  which  run  contrary  to  its 
natural  "  aptitudes  and  preferences,"  and  which  are 
required  to  produce  normal  intellectual  and  moral 
health  to  attain  to  a  more  perfect  social  being.  The 
"  aptitudes  "  will  naturally,  at  least,  assert  them- 
selves, and  need  not  always  be  stimulated  or  over- 
stimulated.  An  emotional  imaginative  and  spas- 
modically active  child,  under  the  stress  of  momentary 
likings  and  enthusiasms,  may  have  to  be  checked  in 
this  exuberance  of  its  individuality  and  systematically 
and  continuously  trained  in  the  direction  of  equable 
activity,  concentration,  and  sober  analytical  study 
and  self-control ;  as  we  have  already  seen  the  child 
manifesting  the  consequences  of  the  converse  tem- 
perament may  have  to  be  stimulated  in  the  opposite 
direction.  But  even  in  definite  studies  and  disciplines 
there  can  be  no  doubt  that,  if  not  the  ideal  teacher, 


NORMALITY  387 

at  all  events  one  possessing  sympathy  and  tact, 
might  by  means  of  well-adapted  methods,  succeed  in 
awakening  and  cultivating  faculties  and  interests 
which  at  the  outset  were  lacking  or  dormant.  Above 
all  the  children  themselves,  by  what  they  say  or  do, 
are  not  always  the  best  guides  as  to  what  may  be 
their,  at  times  latent,  aptitudes  and  tastes.  Their 
distaste  or  irresponsiveness  to  certain  studies  may 
be  the  outcome  of  pure  accident.  I  can  recall  in 
my  own  childhood  that  my  dislike  for  drawing  was 
entirely  due  to  the  unsympathetic  manner  and  the 
faulty  methods  of  my  instructor,  which  deprived  me 
of  early  training  in  a  subject  for  which  I  certainly 
had  taste  and  aptitude  ;  while  in  a  later  phase  of 
my  studies  my  love  for  the  classical  languages  was 
repressed  and  my  application  in  work  checked 
because  my  sincerely  interested  questioning  of  my 
master  concerning  the  deeper  thought  and  meaning 
in  a  classical  work  was  rudely  rebuffed  by  the 
injunction  :  "  You  study  av  with  the  optative  !  " 
For  many  years  after,  I  looked  upon  all  masters  of 
Greek  and  Latin  as  barbarous  pedants,  and  refused 
to  do  more  work  than  was  absolutely  necessary.  No, 
the  aim  and  ideal  which  the  educator  must  hold  before 
his  eyes  is  above  all,  mentally  as  well  as  physically, 
to  produce  in  the  pupil — whatever  his  individuality 
and  personal  aptitudes — human  normality.  Homo 
sum ;  humani  nil  a  me  alienum  puto  must,  from  the 
educational  point  of  view,  be  supplemented  by  the 
equally  important  truth  :  Homo  sum ;  intelligibilis  et 
admirabilis  nil  a  me  alienum  puto.  The  true  and  noble 
injunction  of  the  Roman  comedian  on  the  ethical 
and  social  side  is  supplemented  by  the  ideal  of  human 
normality  on  the  intellectual  and  aesthetic  side. 

However,  in  following  out  this  fundamental 
principle  and  ideal  of  the  education  of  man  as  a 
perfect  being  in  himself,  limitations  are  necessarily  and 


388  EDUCATIONAL   EPILOGUE 

forcibly  imposed  when  we  take  our  stand  on  another 
point  of  view,  namely,  that  of  the  nature  and  duration 
of  human  life  and  its  activity,  as  well  as  the  social 
aspect,  in  which  the  activity  and  productiveness  of 
human  effort  is  judged  by  its  definite  results,  the  end 
of  each  single  effort.  We  are  constantly  limited 
because  of  the  shortness  of  life  and  the  pressing 
demands  of  time  itself  in  relation  to  our  own  limited 
capacity  in  effort  and  work.  So  also  the  deed  or 
the  work  to  be  achieved  requires,  not  only  complete 
concentration  upon  the  definite  task,  but  a  continuous 
preparation  within  the  particular  direction  of  such 
definite  achievement.  These  forceful  limitations  lead 
to  what,  in  one  word,  we  call  specialisation,  which  in 
so  far  is  opposed  to  universal  normality  of  training 
as  well  as  of  effort.  We  have  thus  seen  how  the 
specialist  in  science  and  art,  in  craft,  and  in  the 
definite  practical  activities  in  organised  social  and 
political  life  must  not  only  be  prepared  by  long  and 
arduous  training,  but  also  how  the  special  attitude 
and  habit  of  mind  which  lead  to  the  most  successful 
achievements  in  his  own  department  of  work  must 
predominate  in  his  conscious  and  subconscious  life, 
producing,  as  it  were,  a  certain  bias  and  leading  him 
to  regard  all  phenomena  primarily  from  his  special 
point  of  view.  As  the  sculptor  and  the  painter 
spontaneously  and  involuntarily  view  all  phenomena 
in  their  sculpturesque  or  picturesque  aspect,  so  the 
man  of  science  and  the  man  of  affairs  regard  the 
world  of  things  and  events  in  their  bearing  upon  their 
own  special  life-work,  its  principles  and  aims.  The 
specialist  becomes  abnormal  and  pays  tribute  to  the 
ideal  object  of  his  work  as  well  as  to  the  total  harmony 
and  progress  of  the  social  organism  in  which  he  is 
but  a  contributing  unit.  In  so  far  as  he  is  a  pure 
specialist  he  sacrifices  his  normality,  his  mental  work 
as  a  human  individual,  to  the  social  good  as  well  as 


OVER-SPECIALISATION  389 

to  the  impersonal  perfecting  of  the  body  of  work  to 
which  he  is  but  a  single  and  ephemeral  contributor.1 
This  is  the  supreme  sacrifice  brought  by  the  specialist 
to  the  Altar  of  Humanity.  It  has  never  been  ex- 
pressed more  emphatically  as  applied  to  the  poet 
than  in  the  beautiful  verses  of  Alfred  de  Musset  in 
the  "  Nuit  de  Mai,"  where  he  boldly  calls  in  the 
simile  of  the  self-inflicted  death  of  the  pelican  to 
nurture  his  starving  young,  beginning  with  the  words, 

Lorsque  le  pelican,  lasse  d'un  long  voyage, 

Dans  les  brouillards  du  soir  retourne  a  ses  roseaux     .     .     . 

•  •  •  •  «  • 

Pour  toute  nourriture  il  apporte  son  coeur. 

Fortunately  we  are  not  all,  and  need  not  be,  special- 
ists to  the  same  degree.  We  are,  or  ought  to  be, 
normal  human  beings  ;  and  before  the  specialist 
became  one,  he  must  fully  have  developed  his  mental 
normality.  Yet  even  from  the  point  of  view  of  purely 
objective  specialisation,  we  are  bound  to  realise  that 
there  are  again  limitations  to  the  forces  which  make 
for  it,  imposed  by  the  all-important  fact  that  the 
human  mind,  even  more  than  the  human  body,  is  an 
organism,  and  not  a  mechanism.  We  must  recall 
what  was  said  above  about  the  athlete  and  his 
training.  The  pure  mathematician,  the  craftsman, 
the  financier,  the  artist  and  the  man  of  action,  how- 
ever much  in  the  specialisation  of  their  training  they 
may  master  all  the  principles  and  facts  of  their  definite 
work  and  concentrate  all  their  energies  on  the  definite 
task  before  them,  must  maintain  their  mental  health 
and  sanity,  and  must  draw  upon  the  fullness  of  their 
life  experience,  of  thought  and  imagination,  in  order 
to  concentrate  the  organic  unity  of  their  emotive 
forces  upon  the  one  activity  or  act.  One  definite 
instance  will  best  illustrate  this  point  :  the  performing 

1  See  my  article  on  "  Specialisation,  a  Morbid  Tendency  of  our  Age," 
in  Minerva,  a  cosmopolitan  monthly  review,  edited  by  the  late  Pericles 
Tzikos  in  Rome,  which  appeared  only  in  a  few  numbers  in  1879. 


390  EDUCATIONAL   EPILOGUE 

artist,  interpreting  the  works  of  the  great  masters, 
especially  the   pianist,   requires   the   most   complete 
mechanical  control  over  his  ringers,  so  that,  upon  the 
keyboard  of  the  instrument  which  emits  fully  and 
mechanically  all  the  sounds  and  their  combinations 
which  make  up  the  great  musical  composition,   he 
may  render  or  interpret  the  fullness  of  the  work  of 
art.     To  attain  this  complete  mastery  of  his  art  he 
must  devote  many  hours  of  the  day  to  this  perfecting 
of  this  one  definite  skill ;    repeat  difficult  passages 
again  and  again,  so  that,  almost  subconsciously,  they 
correctly  flow  from  his  fingers  into  the  instrument  ; 
and  he  must  also  specialise  in  the  appreciation  and 
mastery  of  the  musical  works  which  he  is  to  interpret 
and  the  whole  of  music  in  the  atmosphere  of  which 
most  of  his  conscious  mentality  must  dwell.     But  such 
concentration  of  effort  will  not  of  itself  make  a  great 
artist — even  the  reproductive  artist.     A  young  lady, 
who  had  attained  considerable  skill  and  virtuosity  in 
pianoforte  playing,  visited  the  great  master  of  the 
day,  Moscheles,  in  order  to  ask  his  advice,  whether 
or  not  she  was  fitted  to  become  a  professional  pianist 
of  the  first  order.     After,  at  his  request,  playing  a 
sonata    of    Beethoven,    which    she    had    thoroughly 
studied,    he — perhaps     cruelly — played     the     same 
sonata  to  her.     When  he  had  finished  she  sat  there 
crushed  and  depressed,  and  appealingly  asked  him  : 
"  How  can  I  ever  learn  to  play  like  that  ?  n     The 
veteran  artist  turned  upon  her  with  a  look  of  stern- 
ness, blended  with  sympathy,  and  answered,  "  Read 
Shakespeare  1  "     This  meant  that,  even  in  this  com- 
paratively mechanical  function  of  one  definite  and 
special  art,  requiring  the  greatest  concentration  and 
subordination    of   all   life-work    upon    the    technical 
requirement  of  expression,  the  real  spirit  and  essence 
of  successful  performance  depends  upon  the  wholeness 
of  the  personality,  its  mental  and  moral  character, 


EMOTIONAL  ELEMENT  IN  TRAINING     391 

the  Ethos  ;  and  that  this  mental  character,  to  be 
effectively  sane,  must  include  the  essentials  of  life 
and  mind  in  due  proportion  and  harmony.  More 
than  that,  all  these  factors  which  mentally  make  up 
life  must  not  have  passed  singly  and  for  the  nonce 
through  the  apprehending  mind,  but  must  have  been 
assimilated  emotionally  into  the  whole  mentality,  so 
that  they  effectually  direct  the  will  by  means  of 
natural  spontaneous  preference — harmoniotropic  and 
aristotropic.  They  must  have  become  aesthetic  in 
character — what  in  one  word  we  simply  call  "  Taste.'1 
But  this  does  not  only  apply  to  artistic  activity,  to 
which  the  instances  I  have  given  above  belong,  but 
to  every  mental  activity. 

The  grammarian,  the  pure  mathematician  and 
metaphysician  who  live  in  the  rarefied  atmosphere, 
almost  the  vacuum,  of  abstract  thought,  above  the 
air  in  which  and  through  which  we  breathe  and  live, 
and  attempt  to  apply  and  to  adjust  their  abstract 
generalisations  to  nature  and  to  life,  lose  that  sense 
of  proportion  and  judgment  which  guides  us  in  master- 
ing the  vital  art  of  weighing  evidence.  Their  acti- 
vities belong  to  an  unreal  world  in  which  the  questions 
of  actual  life  almost  become  "  puzzles  "  to  be  solved 
and  treated  like  an  intellectual  pastime,  and  they  live 
in  a  world  where  there  are  no  hearts  that  beat,  passions 
that  burn,  material  and  daily  needs  and  wants  that 
insistently  cry  for  satisfaction  and  appeasement,  or 
no  ordinary  uses  of  life  that  call  for  adoption  or  fulfil- 
ment. They  have  lost  the  normality  of  mind,  and  its 
own  want  of  proportion  and  harmony  distorts  in  their 
vision  the  harmony  of  nature  and  life. 

Now  the  sense  which  makes  us  receptive  and  respon- 
sive to  proportion  and  harmony  is,  as  we  have  seen, 
essentially  aesthetic  in  character  and  becomes  active 
in  the  mind  through  emotion  and  imagination  ;  while 
the  ultimate  test  for  the  due  recognition  of  proportion 


392  EDUCATIONAL  EPILOGUE 

and  harmony  must  rest  with  that  faculty  of  taste,  and, 
moreover,  good  taste,  applied  to  all  things  material 
and  spiritual. 

We  are  now  faced  with  the  practical  problem  as  to 
whether  taste — good  taste — can  be  taught  ?  I  main- 
tain that  it  can.  But  let  me  at  once  add  that  our 
educational  aim  must  never  be  to  produce  poets  or 
artists  who,  like  de  Musset's  poet,  "  give  their  heart  " 
and  sacrifice  their  mental  normality.  Still  less  should 
we  aim  at  producing  the  so-called  cesthete  of  the  last 
generation,  who,  with  precious  assertion  of  his  own 
aesthetic  refinement,  opposed  a  manly  and  moderate 
athleticism  and  looked  down  upon  the  practical 
activities  and  eminently  necessary  and  useful  func- 
tions of  a  healthy  society.  Nor  even  the  grammarian 
and  metaphysician  to  whom  we  have  just  referred. 
It  was  the  fear  of  this  emasculating  influence  of  art 
upon  the  training  of  the  Attic  citizen  and  upon  the 
vigorous  political  life  of  the  community  as  a  whole, 
that  led  Plato  and  Aristotle  to  underestimate  the 
nature,  as  well  as  the  value,  of  art  in  its  position  in 
the  State.  The  sense  of  due  proportion  and  of  good 
taste,  however  fundamental  and  important  they  are 
in  themselves,  must  before  all  be  applied  to  the  educa- 
tional position  of  art  and  aesthetics  in  the  wholeness  of 
life  and  mind. 

Naturally  the  most  direct  form  in  which  this 
aesthetic  faculty  is  to  be  developed  is  through  the 
appreciation  of  the  best  works  of  art,  plastic  and 
graphic,  as  well  as  musical  and  literary.  The  young 
should  be  surrounded  by  such  works  of  art  as  are 
admittedly  the  best,  and  the  inferior,  the  obtrusively 
resplendent  as  well  as  the  obtrusively  mean,  are  to 
be  discarded.  This  applies  also  to  the  form  and  sub- 
stance of  domestic  surroundings,  and  to  articles  of 
daily  use.  The  desirability  of  this  course  has  been, 
and  is,  strongly  felt  by  many  in  our  own  days.  I  have 


EDUCATION   IN   ARTISTIC   TASTE        393 

for  some  years  been  connected  with  an  organisation 
called  the  Art  for  Schools  Association,  the  work  of 
which,  I  fear,  has  lately  been  suspended.  It  aimed 
at  placing  within  the  reach  of  all  schools  specimens  of 
the  Fine  Arts  to  be  displayed  in  the  class-rooms,  and 
thus  to  be  constantly  brought  to  the  notice  of  all  the 
pupils.  I  must  add  that  I  think  it  most  important 
to  select  such  specimens  from  the  art  of  the  past  as  are 
recognised  as  masterpieces.  I  do  not  think  it  wise 
to  include  those  forms  of  contemporary  art  which  may 
merely  respond  to  a  fashion  or  casual  movement  and 
which  have  not  yet  attained  their  right  of  existence 
as  being  of  enduring  value  by  longer  test  in  time,  and 
may,  in  fact,  be  purely  ephemeral,  or  representative  of 
an  inferior  phase  of  the  national  mentality.  The 
same,  of  course,  a  fortiori  applies  to  the  national  taste 
as  represented  by  collections  in  museums,  as  well  as 
in  municipal  buildings  and  the  decoration  of  public 
places.  As  regards  the  literary,  musical  and  dramatic 
arts,  the  same  careful  selection  ought  to  be  made  by 
parents  and  educators,  as  well  as  by  public  bodies 
and  the  State.  The  example  of  the  older  Germany 
stands  out  in  this  respect  with  marked  pre-eminence. 
Not  only  the  capitals  and  metropolitan  centres  but 
even  smaller  provincial  towns  excelled  in  this  public 
activity  of  aesthetic  education.  I  can  recall  from  my 
student  days  at  Heidelberg  how  the  neighbouring 
town  of  Mannheim,  which  then  had  a  population  of 
less  than  50,000  inhabitants,  supported  a  Theatre 
and  Opera  in  which  nearly  all  the  Shakespearian 
dramas,  besides  the  best  modern  plays  of  all  nations, 
the  great  classical  and  modern  operas,  the  best 
chamber  music  as  well  as  orchestral  and  symphony 
concerts,  could  be  seen  and  heard  at  such  low  prices 
as  to  be  within  the  reach  of  all  classes.  Excellent 
actors  and  musicians,  rendering  works  not  surpassed 
in  selection  and  in  execution  by  similar  institutions 


394  EDUCATIONAL   EPILOGUE 

in  much  larger  cities,  were  regularly  provided. 
Theatres  and  orchestras  were  moreover  subventioned 
by  the  municipality  by  a  tax  on  bread  !  Surely  it  lies 
within  the  means  of  practical  politics  to  bring  before 
the  young  of  all  classes  the  purest  art,  and  to  enable 
the  adult  population  to  become  habitually  acquainted 
with  the  best  works,  embodying  the  best  taste. 

In  the  selection  of  literature,  in  the  school  readers 
and  in  recitation,  far  more  care  ought  to  be  taken  that 
the  pupils  be  made  familiar  with  the  best  works  in 
poetry  and  prose,  and  be  warned  or  carefully  guarded 
against  the  bad  taste  and  vulgarity  and  even  sensation- 
alism of  much  that  is  popularly  included  in  such  readers 
or  which  they  are  led  to  recite  with  dramatic  precocity. 

It  is  here  that,  both  positively  and  negatively,  the 
seeds  of  good  taste  can  be  sown  and  assured  in  their 
growth  by  the  individual  teacher  in  the  school  and  the 
parent  at  home.  To  how  many  of  these  do  most  of  us 
not  owe  the  awakening  of  our  taste  for  good  literature, 
as  well  as  our  love  of  science  and  art  in  all  their  forms  ? 
I  have  been  told  by  many  men  of  eminence  and 
achievement  that  they  owed  a  great  debt  to  their 
housemaster  or  tutor  at  school  for  having  tactfully 
lent  or  pressed  upon  them  the  best  books,  as  well  as 
by  occasional  criticism  pointed  out  to  them  the  bad 
taste  in  works  of  an  inferior  order,  and  thereby  helped 
to  develop  in  them  the  higher  culture  and  the  en- 
thusiasm for  the  noble  things  of  the  mind.  Of  course, 
here  again,  great  care  must  be  taken  as  regards  the 
form  which  such  presentation  and  stimulation  takes, 
as  well  as  in  the  apposite  time  and  place  suited  to  the 
capacities  of  the  young.  Without  this  even  the 
greatest  classics,  obtruded  upon  an  unprepared  and 
irresponsive  mind,  may  produce  lasting  indifference, 
if  not  opposition.  Above  all,  harmonious  proportion 
must  here  also  be  applied,  and  the  stimulation  of 
taste  in  these  directions  must  not  take  the  form  of 


BEAUTIES  OF  NATURE  395 

opposition   to   manly    athletic   interests    or    serious 
mental  discipline,  in  work  and  play. 

In  the  same  way,  besides  the  interest  in  "  Nature 
study,"  the  youthful  mind  and  heart  can  be  awakened 
to  responsiveness  to  beauties  in  nature. 

I  know  of  the  case  of  a  wonderfully  wise  mother  of 
four  boys  who,  while  in  no  way  neglecting  or  depre- 
ciating accurate  mental  training  and  emotional 
development  of  character  in  work  and  play,  carefully 
impressed  upon  her  children  the  beauties  in  life,  in 
nature  and  in  art  in  the  best  forms  that  she  could 
bring  before  them,  without  in  any  way  producing  in 
them  the  self-consciousness  and  pedantry  of  those 
conscious  of  their  own  refinement  and  "  precious  " 
superiority.  On  one  occasion,  in  the  old  days  of 
travelling  by  coach  in  America,  after  ascending  the 
heights  of  the  Catskill  Mountains,  this  mother  stood 
with  her  four  boys,  all  wrapped  in  silence  at  the 
marvellous  scene  from  the  mountain  peak,  with  the 
valley  of  the  Hudson,  through  which  the  silver  thread 
of  the  river,  glided  past  between  fertile  fields  and 
woods,  the  luminous  rays  of  the  sun  gleaming  through 
massed  clouds,  until  the  smallest  boy,  aged  nine, 
passionately  fond  of  games  and  sport,  burst  forth 
with  childish  rapture,  exclaiming,  "  This  is  better 
than  a  whole  winter  of  Italian  opera  !  "  He  had  in 
the  previous  winter  been  taken  to  hear  his  first  opera, 
which  to  him  had  been  one  of  the  most  thrilling 
experiences  of  his  life,  and  with  his  passionate  love  of 
music,  coupled  with  an  exceptional  memory,  he  had 
been  trilling  some  of  the  airs  ever  since.  It  was  thus 
that  this  sublime  experience  in  the  heart  of  nature 
stirred  him  to  express  his  supreme  delight  by  com- 
paring it  with  what  in  the  art  of  music  had  previously 
been  his  most  thrilling  experience. 

Thus  to  cultivate  taste  in  every  direction  need  never 
emasculate  the  sterner  sense  of  duty  nor  the  manliness 


396  EDUCATIONAL  EPILOGUE 

of  character  ;  but,  while  providing  the  intellect  with  a 
dominant  moving  power,  it  will  also  tend,  when  applied 
to  the  art  of  living,  to  the  refinement  of  taste,  to  the 
cultivation  of  good  manners,  to  considerateness  and 
tact  in  dealing  with  others,  which  is  one  of  the  highest, 
if  not  the  latest,  achievement  of  civilised  society. 

We  thus  come  to  the  Art  of  Living  itself.  The 
atmosphere  of  the  home,  the  school,  of  all  collective 
social  groups  in  what  is  called  "  tone,"  is  most  effective 
in  producing  good  taste.  It  is  here  that  individual 
parents  and  teachers  can  make  or  mar  taste  which,  as 
we  have  seen  in  the  chapter  on  Ethics,  is  ultimately 
the  deciding  factor  in  all  ethics,  in  the  appreciation  of 
the  Good,  and  in  determining  the  right  values  in  the 
clash  of  duties  in  Moral  Casuistry.  The  general 
atmosphere  of  the  home  and  of  the  school  must  be 
that  of  good  breeding,  good  manners  and  good  taste, 
leading  to  considerateness,  charity  and  tact.  Coarse- 
ness, vulgarity,  and  meanness  must  be  held  up  to 
reproval  and  contempt  in  their  ugliness  and  repulsive- 
ness,  so  that  they  spontaneously  produce  disapproval 
and  disgust.  This  course  is  more  directly  and  last- 
ingly effective  than  reasoned  argument  and  moral 
condemnation,  which,  though  appealing  to  intellec- 
tual and  moral  understanding,  do  not  ensure  effective 
control  and  direction  in  action  to  the  same  degree. 

By  example  and  by  well-timed  injunction,  blatant 
self-assertion  or  morbid  self-effacement  and  shyness 
are  to  be  stigmatised  and  repressed,  and  are  to  be 
replaced  by  perfect  harmony  and  the  grace  of  good 
and  natural  manners  ;  the  young  are  to  be  led  to 
avoid  humour  and  pleasantry  as  well  as  seriousness 
or  solemnity  out  of  time  or  place,  the  tedious  obtru- 
siveness  of  the  frivolous  jester  or  the  pedantic  prig  ; 
and  positively  and  spontaneously  to  evoke  the  spirit 
of  beauty  dominating  individual  and  collective  action 
in  every  home  and  social  centre. 


HUMANISTIC    STUDIES  397 

When,  finally,  we  come  to  the  higher  specialised 
and  scientific  studies  in  universities  and  in  after  life, 
the  results  of  our  inquiries  in  the  chapter  on  Epis- 
temology  have  shown  us  that,  beginning  with  our 
sense-perceptions,  our  powers  of  observation  must  be 
intensified  in  every  direction  and  made  accurate  and 
refined,  sensitive  to  those  manifestations  of  objective 
harmony  in  the  outer  world  and  in  the  functioning  of 
our  sensory  organs — both  of  which  rest  upon  aesthetic 
properties. 

We  have  seen  too  that  the  further  mental  pro- 
cesses, effected  by  our  memory  and  associative 
faculties,  which  are  also  based  upon  the  principle  of 
harmony  and  aesthetic  responsiveness,  are  dependent 
upon  our  imagination,  and  that  the  full  realisation  of 
Truth  in  conviction  ultimately  leads  to  an  aesthetic 
emotion  ;  until,  finally,  in  the  discovery  of  new 
truths  by  means  of  isolation  of  phenomena  and 
concentration  upon  their  relationships,  our  creative, 
imaginative  and  aesthetic  faculties  are  of  supreme  and 
effective  importance.  Still  more  have  we  realised 
how  in  the  exposition  of  Truth  the  aesthetic  quality  is 
so  pronounced  that  it  can  hardly  be  distinguished 
from  the  activities  of  the  poet  and  the  artist. 

If  this  be  true,  then  it  will  be  of  undeniable  import- 
ance that,  however  intense  and  thorough  the  con- 
centration of  the  special  student  of  science  upon  the 
exact  and  natural  sciences  may  have  to  be,  the 
successful  pursuit  of  these  studies  themselves,  as  well 
as  the  mental  health  of  the  scientific  specialist  as  a 
normal  human  being,  will  always  make  it  necessary 
that  in  higher  academic  studies  what  are  called  the 
Humanities  should  hold  an  important  position,  not 
only  in  the  preparatory  training  of  the  scientific 
specialist,  but  continuously,  throughout  the  whole 
of  his  subsequent  work  and  life. 


APPENDIX 


APPENDIX 


THE  FUTURE  OF  THE  LEAGUE  OF  NATIONS1 

A  Lecture  delivered  to  the  Summer  Meeting  Students  at  Cambridge 
on  Wednesday,  August  II,  1920. 

THE  Chairman,2  in  his  opening  remarks,  said  Sir  Charles  had 
had  the  cause  of  the  League  of  Nations  at  heart  for  a  great 
many  years — many  more  than  the  years  in  which  it  had  been 
familiar  to  them.  His  lecture  that  afternoon  would  be  of 
great  interest  and  importance. 

Before  proceeding  with  his  lecture,  Sir  Charles  Walston  said  : 
"  I  venture  to  point  out  to  you  a  very  striking  coincidence. 
In  the  first  week  of  August  1914,  just  six  years  ago,  during 
a  course  of  lectures  on  '  Art  and  Industry '  which  I  had  the 
honour  to  give  to  this  same  Summer  Meeting,  we  stood  before 
the  greatest  world  crisis.  I  then  adjured  my  audience  to 
stand  together  and  submerge  all  individual  and  party 
differences  in  defence  of  the  country  and  our  country's  honour. 
I  maintained  that  we  could  not  stand  by  and  see  France 
crushed.  (Applause.)  That  was  on  the  2nd  of  August. 
To-day,  after  peace  has  been  signed,  we  stand  before  another 
crisis — a  great  world  crisis.  The  world  is  threatened  with 
international  as  well  as  national  anarchy.  It  is  my  firm  con- 
viction that  if  the  League  of  Nations  were  fully  and  efficiently 
organised,  with  a  practically  efficient  machinery  for  ensuring 
its  just  decisions,  the  danger  to  the  world  and  its  civilisation 
would  be  averted." 

What  is  the  future  of  the  League  of  Nations  ?  Sir  Charles 
proceeded.  As  in  the  history  of  most  human  institutions, 
the  future,  with  its  prospective  environment,  depends  to  a 
considerable  degree  upon  their  past  and  present.  We  are 

1  Here  reprinted  from  the  shorthand  report  published  by  the  Cam- 
bridge Daily  News,  with  slight  corrections. 

1  The  Rev.  R.  St.  John  Parry,  Vice-Master  of  Trinity  College. 
27  4°  I 


402  APPENDIX 

not  to  any  great  degree  concerned  here  to-day  with  the 
past  history  of  the  League,  on  which  aspect  of  the  question 
there  exists  considerable  literature.  You  will  be  able  to 
inform  yourself  of  this  past  history  by  referring  to  any  of 
the  established  treatises  or  textbooks  on  international  law, 
especially  in  those  chapters  which  deal  with  the  laws  regu- 
lating war. 

The  plans  for  the  prevention  of  war  go  far  back  in  the 
literature  of  civilised  peoples,  some  of  them  partaking  of  a 
purely  imaginary  character  in  some  so-called  Utopian  recon- 
struction of  human  society  ;  others,  more  consistently  philo- 
sophical and  reasoned  and  even  technically  legal  and  political, 
form  the  groundwork  for  the  modern  development  of  Inter- 
national Law. 

We  are  distinctly  not  concerned  with  this  aspect  of  the 
question,  nor  even  chiefly  with  an  exposition  of  the  actual 
present  constitution  of  the  Covenant  in  all  its  articles  and 
details.  To  apprehend  clearly  and  fully  this  latter  aspect  of 
the  question,  I  can  refer  you  especially  to  the  numerous  publi- 
cations easily  procurable  at  a  low  cost  through  the  efforts  of 
the  League  of  Nations  Union,  under  whose  direct  auspices  I 
am  addressing  you  to-day.  I  may  single  out  among  the  most 
convenient  and  instructive  publications  of  this  kind  the 
pamphlet  by  Sir  Geoffrey  Butler  (A  Handbook  to  the  League  of 
Nations)  ;  The  League  of  Nations,  by  Sir  Frederick  Pollock ; 
Lectures  on  the  League  of  Nations,  by  Dr.  T.  J.  Lawrence  ; 
The  League  of  Nations  :  A  Practical  Suggestion,  by  General 
Smuts  ;  The  League  of  Nations,  by  Prof.  L.  Oppenheim  ;  and 
an  article  on  "  The  League  of  Nations  and  the  Problem  of 
Sovereignty,"  by  Lord  Robert  Cecil. 

Thus,  with  the  past  and  the  present  we  are  not  chiefly 
concerned,  and  I  shall  only  refer  to  them  in  so  far  as  they  are 
essential  to  the  understanding  of  the  future  and  more  or  less 
help  us  in  our  somewhat  bold,  though  tentative,  forecast. 
The  actual  and  distinctive  nature  of  the  modern  League  of 
Nations  differs  essentially  from  the  history  of  the  more  remote 
past  of  the  League  (roughly  speaking,  down  to  the  second  half 
of  the  last  century),  in  that  all  schemes  for  the  prevention  of 
war  were  purely  academic  and  philosophical — they  were  mere 
paper-schemes,  and  were  not  before  the  world  as  actual 


LEAGUE   OF   NATIONS  403 

political  enactments  on  which  the  several  nations  had  to  come 
to  a  definite  decision.  They  had  not  been  raised  from  the 
sphere  of  thought  to  that  of  action.  On  the  other  hand,  such 
definite  attempts  as  that  of  the  Vienna  Congress  and  the  Holy 
Alliance  differed  fundamentally  from  the  present  state  of  the 
question  in  that  the  direct  aim  of  that  alliance  was  concerned, 
negatively,  in  combating,  not  only  all  national  revolution,  but 
also  the  whole  trend  of  the  liberal  movement  within  the 
several  civilised  States ;  and,  positively,  to  uphold  all  that  is 
summarised  under  the  term  Legitimacy.  Its  activity  was  not 
wholly  and  definitely  international  in  purview  and  in  inter- 
ventive  action,  but  penetrated  into  the  internal  national  poli- 
tical life  of  the  more  liberal  States.  It  is  much  more  difficult 
for  me  to  deal  with  the  present  constitution  and  the  resultant 
activity  of  the  League  in  the  form  which  the  Covenant  has 
taken. 

I  should  not  forgive  myself — nor  would  you — if,  in  anything 
I  said,  I  should  weaken  or  retard  the  realisation  of  the  great 
central  aim  which  supporters  of  the  League  of  Nations  have 
set  themselves,  and  to  play  into  the  hands  of  the  Reactionaries, 
Chauvinists,  Junkers,  and  Militarists — who  exist  not  only  in 
Germany  but  among  us  as  well,  as  also  (let  us  hope  in  minori- 
ties) in  other  civilised  nations — who  consider,  with  the  Bern- 
hardis,  that  war  is  a  "  biological  necessity,"  and  even  that  it 
ultimately  tends  towards  the  moral  advancement  of  mankind. 
I  should  prefer — and  I  have  acted  accordingly  for  some  time — 
to  suppress,  though  never  to  abandon,  my  own  firm  convic- 
tions, if  I  thought  that,  by  urging  them  in  a  wide  and  effective 
publicity,  such  would  be  the  result.  As  I  am  honestly  pre- 
pared to  give  all  the  small  help  that  I  am  able  to  give  to  those 
who  are  following  the  same  ultimate  ends,  for  which  I  would 
willingly  sacrifice  my  own  life,  so  I  would  beg  of  you  not  to  be 
misled  by  any  criticism  I  may  make  with  regard  to  the  actual 
constitution  and  the  present  activities  of  the  existing  League, 
to  glide  into,  or  deliberately  to  adopt,  an  inimical  attitude 
towards  the  Covenant.  Nor  would  I  have  you  believe  that 
I  am  unmindful  of  the  high-minded  and  intelligent  work  which 
all  those  have  done  who  have  been  actively  concerned  in 
drafting  the  Covenant  in  Paris,  and  are  now  using  their  best 
efforts  for  its  realisation  amid  momentous,  gravely  tragic,  and 


404  APPENDIX 

ominous  complications  of  the  world's  affairs  since  the  signing 
of  the  Armistice,  and  more  especially  at  this  most  critical 
moment  in  the  world's  history.  Honest  and  far-sighted 
statesmen,  like  Lord  Grey  of  Fallodon,  General  Smuts,  Mr. 
Balfour,  Lord  Robert  Cecil,  Lord  Phillimore,  and  almost 
every  one  of  our  other  statesmen,  and  (to  mention  but  one  of 
the  great  men  in  other  countries)  M.  Le*on  Bourgeois,  have 
done  all  in  their  power  during  the  drafting  of  the  Covenant  to 
steer  the  gallant  ship  among  all  the  rocks  and  snags  of  con- 
flicting interests,  national  and  personal  convictions,  to  within 
reasonable  hailing  distance  of  the  secure  harbour  of  lasting 
peace  and  international  co-operation  ;  and  in  so  far  we  all  of 
us,  and  the  whole  world,  must  be  grateful  to  them.  I  may 
add  that  the  formulation  of  the  idea  of  Mandatory  Powers 
conferred  on  the  League  was  a  stroke  of  genius  for  which  alone 
the  originator  (is  it  General  Smuts  ?)  has  won  lasting  fame. 

On  the  other  hand,  I  should  not  be  doing  my  duty  to  you, 
nor  to  my  better  self,  nor  possibly  to  the  world  at  large,  if, 
absolutely  convinced  as  I  am  that,  during  this  period  since 
the  drafting  of  its  constitution  and  the  actual  establishment 
of  the  League  as  a  working  body,  it  has  far  from  fulfilled  the 
promise  of  the  promoters  and  hopes  of  the  public,  I  did  not 
fearlessly  point  out  where  I  think  there  are  flagrant,  yet 
remediable,  faults  in  its  constitution.  More  especially,  at 
this  present  momentous  crisis  in  the  world's  history,  I  am 
bound  to  supplement  such  negative  criticism  by  pointing  to 
what,  in  my  own  conviction,  is  a  constructive  means  of  remedy- 
ing its  defects,  when  there  is  a  possibility — nay,  a  definite 
probability — that  such  remedial  practical  action  could  be 
taken  in  the  immediate  future  to  save  the  whole  situation. 

Now,  it  will  be  difficult,  if  not  impossible,  for  me  to  give 
you  in  so  short  a  time  a  full  and  adequate  exposition  of  the 
constructive  plan  to  which,  perhaps  with  some  foolhardiness, 
I  attribute  such  far-reaching  benefits  to  the  great  cause  which 
we  all  have  at  heart.  It  is  for  this  reason  only  that  I  feel  bound 
to  acquaint  those  who  may  have  especial  interest  in  the  ques- 
tion with  a  fuller  account  of  my  own  views,  which  it  is  but 
right  that  I  should  tell  you  were  not  formulated  or  published 
in  one  day,  month,  or  year,  but  go  back,  as  a  matter  of  fact, 
many  years  before  their  first  publication  in  1899,  an<^  have 


LEAGUE   OF   NATIONS  405 

been  repeated  and  modified  ever  since.  They  thus  possess, 
not  the  fault,  but  the  merit,  of  progressive  modification  in  the 
various  phases  of  their  publication  to  the  present  day.  Besides 
the  public,  but  not  printed,  anticipation  of  this  scheme  in  the 
early  seventies  of  the  last  century,  an  outline  sketch  was 
published  (after  an  address  at  the  Imperial  Institute  in 
London  in  1898)  in  my  book  on  The  Expansion  of  Western 
Ideals  and  the  World's  Peace  in  1899.  It  was  further  embodied 
in  my  book  Aristodemocracy ,  etc.,  written  in  the  winter  of 
1914-15  and  published  in  the  spring  of  1916.  Further  aspects 
of  the  vital  question  were  referred  to  in  my  book  Patriotism  : 
National  and  International,  1917  ;  while  in  the  pamphlet 
The  Next  War  :  WUsonism  and  Anti-Wilsonism  (October  1918) 
it  is  more  definitely  formulated  ;  until,  in  the  autumn  of  1919, 
the  first  publication  of  1899  (which  has  now  been  out  of  print 
for  some  time)  is  republished,  as  well  as  the  pamphlet  on  The 
Next  War,  with  some  added  new  material,  in  The  English- 
speaking  Brotherhood  and  the  League  of  Nations.  Since  then, 
last  April,  I  have  also  published  a  more  condensed  article  in 
the  Renaissance  Politique  of  Paris,  to  which  the  veteran 
M.  Boutroux  has  added  an  introduction. 

While  the  modern  conception  and  the  ensuing  movement 
towards  a  League  of  Nations,  as  we  have  seen,  differs  essentially 
from  the  individual  and  more  academic  schemes  to  ensure  the 
peace  of  the  world  in  the  past,  as  well  as  from  the  more  dis- 
tinctly political  action  of  the  Holy  Alliance,  it  must  be 
admitted  that  these  previous  efforts  in  general  did  contribute 
to  the  creation  of  a  public  consciousness  and  the  public  opinion 
of  the  civilised  world,  so  that  men  were  prepared  for  its 
realisation  in  the  national  life  of  civilised  peoples.  The  actual 
schemes  were  thus  not  cast  upon  the  world  as  doctrinaire 
paper-schemes  of  the  moment,  but  had  in  the  very  heart  of 
their  vitality  what  is  called  "  historical  evolution,"  infusing 
actual  life  and  durability  into  the  organic  soundness  of  con- 
stitutional sanctions  which  States  and  individuals  give  to 
their  effective  laws.  Still  more  has  this  been  the  case  in  the 
more  compressed  and  rapid  evolution  of  the  last  fifty  years 
preceding  the  actual  drafting  of  the  Covenant.  Step  by  step, 
during  this  period  the  historian  of  the  future  will  be  able  to 
trace  the  advance  of  the  seed  towards  germination  and 


406  APPENDIX 

complete  fructification  in  the  final  production  of  the  Covenant 
to  initiate  this  greatest  definite  act  in  history — namely,  the 
concerted  decision  of  civilised  nations  to  substitute  Justice 
and  Law  for  the  Ordeal  of  Battle. 

Now,  in  the  evolution  of  that  public  consciousness,  or  public 
opinion,  there  were  several  environing,  or  accessory,  factors 
which  had  favoured  and  accelerated  its  growth  and  consistency 
to  such  a  degree  that,  without  their  confluence,  there  could  not 
have  been  that  great  torrent  of  human  conviction  rushing 
onward  and  carrying  all  impediments  before  it  to  the  goal  of 
realisation.  To  enumerate  but  three  (though  there  are  many 
more) :  The  growth  of  intercommunication  between  the  several 
nations,  civilised  and  even  half-civilised,  and  its  facility, 
directness,  and  universality — whatever  dissociating  forces 
of  competition,  jealousy,  provincialism  of  heart  and  mind, 
differences  of  national  temperament  and  habits  of  living, 
may  have  existed,  exist,  and  will  exist — brought  even  remote 
people  of  different  race  and  nationality  sufficiently  into  com- 
munion with  one  another  that  it  at  least  strengthened  and 
made  more  real  the  consciousness  of  people  in  all  civilised 
countries  of  the  intimate  relationship,  if  not  the  identity,  of 
human  beings  to  one  another.  The  consequence  of  this 
closer  sympathy  and  the  familiarity  with  the  lives  of  other 
nations  was  that  but  few  sane  and  moral  citizens  in  all  the 
civilised  States  could  contemplate,  without  protest  and  horror, 
the  idea  that  they  should  in  cold  blood  slay  the  fathers,  hus- 
bands, and  sons  of  the  families  whom  they  had  hospitably 
received,  whom  they  had  known  in  their  several  countries,  or 
with  whom  they  were  in  some,  more  or  less,  direct  communica- 
tion in  social  or  business  life.  I  may  here  at  once  mention,  by 
the  way,  to  those  who  constantly  and  with  arrogant  readiness 
assert  that  man  has  always  been  in  the  past  what  he  is  in  the 
present  and  that  past  history  proves  that  the  readiness  to  slay 
is  inherent  in  man — to  those  who  glibly  and  ignorantly  affirm 
in  their  arguments  on  all  questions  of  social  and  material  life 
that  something  is  "  against  nature  " — that  the  cave-dweller 
in  the  early  Stone  Age  certainly  had  no  such  feelings  as 
regards  his  fellow-men  living  thousands  of  miles  from  his  own 
home  among  the  most  different  conditions  of  life.  Even 
towards  his  immediate  neighbour  of  another  family,  clan,  or 


LEAGUE   OF   NATIONS  407 

tribe,  he  would  have  had  no  hesitation  whatever  nor  any 
scruples  in  slaying  him.  Why,  some  of  your  grandfathers 
would  not  only  have  considered  it  the  right  but  the  supreme 
duty  of  the  model  man  of  honour,  to  retire  to  Chalk  Farm  in 
order  to  shoot,  or  be  shot  by,  a  man  who  had  insulted  them. 
Further,  in  the  economic  evolution  of  our  times,  it  had  been 
realised  (though  the  constraining  force  of  the  economic  factor 
in  modern  life  had  in  this  connection — as  perhaps  now  in 
other  national  and  social  problems — been  greatly  exaggerated 
by  some  writers  and  thinkers)  that  the  economic  loss  or 
destruction  of  one  nation  did  not  result  in  the  gain  of  its 
enemy — in  fact,  that  the  economic  organism  of  the  world  is 
so  delicate,  that  every  nation  might  be  the  loser  by  the  destruc- 
tion of  any  one,  and  that  the  Wars  of  Conquest,  which  formed 
the  chief  motive  to  many,  if  not  most,  wars  of  the  past,  were 
no  longer  possible.  In  the  third  place,  the  economic  burden 
of  armaments  tended  to  become  such  as  to  be  practically 
unbearable  to  each  nation  as  they  progressed,  until  finally  they 
would  lead  to  bankruptcy. 

The  direct  influence  of  these  kindred  forces,  filtering  into  the 
public  and  political  consciousness,  especially  of  all  democratic 
peoples,  led  to  definite  action  on  the  part  of  those  in  authority, 
of  the  several  Governments  and  rulers,  and  more  definitely 
took  the  form  of  the  numerous  treaties  of  arbitration  between 
various  States,  especially  between  the  United  States  and  our- 
selves, in  which  notably  President  Taft  was  most  successfully 
active  ;  until  finally  we  come  to  the  Peace  Conference  at  The 
Hague,  the  immediate  precursor  of  our  Covenant.  I  may  at 
once  say  that,  however  useful  and  meritorious  the  establish- 
ment of  that  international  body  has  been,  it  failed  in  its  real 
effectiveness,  to  my  mind,  for  two  reasons  :  first,  that  it  had 
no  force  to  ensure  the  carrying  into  effect  of  its  decisions  ; 
and,  second,  that  it  aimed  at  being  a  definite  Legislative  Body, 
which,  I  believe,  was  premature,  as  I  also  believe  that,  to 
a  great  degree,  the  same  objections  apply  to  the  present 
Covenant. 

Thus  it  cannot  be  said  that  the  League  of  Nations  has  been 
sprung  upon  the  world  out  of  the  air  and  on  paper  only  as  a 
Utopian  League  of  Dreams  (as  it  has  been  called  by  our  con- 
firmed enemies)  ;  but  that  it  has  all  the  essentials  of  natural, 


408  APPENDIX 

historical,  and  moral  evolution  which  it  is  (perhaps  with  some 
exaggeration)  maintained  is  essential  to  the  durable  establish- 
ment of  social  and  political  institutions. 

We  now  come  to  the  final  fructification  of  this  long  and 
continuous  germination  in  the  world's  history,  and  to  the 
greatest  crisis  which  civilised  man  has  ever  faced,  namely, 
after  the  entrance  of  the  United  States  into  the  Great  War 
to  the  advent  of  President  Wilson  on  the  scene  in  Paris  and 
the  constitution  of  the  Covenant. 

This  was  indeed  a  moment  in  history  most  pregnant  with 
the  destiny  of  future  man,  and  I  cannot  believe  that  it  is  an 
exaggeration  to  say,  that  no  one  man  was  ever  presented  with 
an  opportunity  of  effecting  to  a  greater  degree  the  welfare  of 
nations  and  individuals  in  his  own  personality  and  by  his 
own  judgment  than  was  President  Wilson  on  the  occasion 
of  his  first  visit.  The  whole  world  and  all  Governments, 
including  even  our  enemies,  were  prepared  to  receive  favour- 
ably whatever  he  might  suggest,  and,  if  not  blindly  to  accept 
his  own  decisions,  at  least  to  meet  the  expression  of  his  own 
judgment  in  a  spirit  of  a  priori  favourableness,  which  has 
hardly  ever  been  vouchsafed  to  any  leader  or  prophet  leading 
a  cause.  This  did  not  only  apply  to  the  anticipation  of  a 
spirit  of  wise  fairness,  which  the  whole  world  was  led  to  expect 
from  him,  in  the  drafting  of  the  Peace  Treaty  itself,  and  by 
this  wisdom  and  fairness  to  overcome  some  of  the  most  com- 
plicated and  apparently  hopeless  problems  inherent  in  any 
such  Treaty  ;  but  also  in  the  weight  he  would  carry  towards 
the  realisation  of  a  League  of  Nations.  As  regards  the  most 
critical  and  difficult  problems  of  the  Peace  Treaty  itself,  there 
were  many  of  us  who  realised  (and  all  ought  to  have  realised 
this)  that  the  advent  of  the  United  States  into  the  war  was  the 
most  significant  and  hopeful  contingency,  not  only  for  the 
promise  of  an  early  victory  and  cessation  of  the  war  itself,  but 
because  the  more  disinterested,  if  not  completely  neutral, 
position  of  the  United  States,  with  regard  to  the  hereditary 
conflict  of  interests  in  the  form  of  the  lust  of  annexation  and 
the  guarding  of  the  Balance  of  European  Power,  coupled  with 
the  wisdom,  judgment,  and  tact  of  the  authoritative  and  august 
mouthpiece  of  American  public  opinion,  would  tend  to  solve  all 
the  difficulties  grouped  round  the  general  question  of  annexa- 


LEAGUE   OF   NATIONS  409 

tion,  the  reconstitution  of  dissolved  empires,  and,  above 
all,  the  disposal  of  the  colonies  ceded  by  the  Central  Powers. 
We  all  feared  during  every  stage  of  the  progress  of  the  war, 
especially  before  Russia  had  left  the  ranks  of  the  Allies,  that 
the  conflicting  interests  of  the  Allied  Powers  and  the  grasping 
spirit  of  the  traditional  foreign  policy  of  each  one  of  them  would 
produce  endless  difficulties  in  the  final  ratification  of  peace. 
The  same  evil  traditions,  fixed  by  centuries  of  organisation 
and  methods  in  Foreign  Offices  and  diplomacy,  in  the  strength 
and  fixity  of  their  survival  endangered  the  realisation  of  any 
League  of  Nations  or  Covenant. 

It  is  not  for  me  here — nor,  I  believe,  for  any  living  person 
of  the  present  day — to  anticipate  the  verdict  of  history 
with  regard  to  the  personality  and  activity  of  President 
Wilson  in  relation  to  the  Paris  Peace  Conference.  We 
must  leave  this  to  the  judgment  of  future  history.  Perhaps 
the  unqualified  sweeping  condemnation  of  his  action, 
so  widely  expressed  and  accepted  at  the  present  moment, 
may,  to  a  considerable  degree,  be  reversed.  But  so  much 
we  may  venture  to  say  with  the  deepest  regret,  that,  if 
wisdom  and  tact  in  the  sympathetic  projection  into  the 
mentality  of  other  people  and  nations,  and  in  foreseeing 
the  results  of  his  action  even  upon  the  people  of  the  United 
States  and  its  government  and  constitution,  had  been  more 
dominant  in  every  phase  of  his  activity,  the  results  might 
have  been  far  different  and  far  more  favourable.  To  take 
but  one  flagrant  contingency :  If  the  President  had  associated 
with  the  personnel  of  his  own  commission,  some  of  the  out- 
standing figures  of  the  other  great  party  in  his  own  country, 
and  especially  those  clearly  identified  with  the  class  of  work 
before  the  Paris  Conference,  such  as  Mr.  Taft  and  Mr.  Root, 
the  experience  and  the  advice  of  such  men  might  have  been 
of  inestimable  advantage  both  in  the  deliberations  and  in  the 
decisions  of  the  Conference,  and  would  have  assured  authorita- 
tive consideration  for  such  decisions  in  the  United  States 
itself. 

But  the  Peace  Treaty  has  practically  been  concluded,  and 
the  League  of  Nations  has  been  established.  Yet,  as  was  to 
be  expected,  the  conditions  of  the  Peace  Treaty  itself  have 
presented  the  contracting  parties,  and  the  whole  world,  with 


410  APPENDIX 

contentious  points  which  cannot,  and  could  not,  at  once  be 
successfully  removed.  The  Covenant  of  the  League  of  Nations 
has  been  drawn  up  and  approved.  Yet  here  also  the  justified 
hopes  of  the  whole  world  have  not  been  realised.  So  far  from 
this  being  the  case,  a  large  number  of  those  who  confidently 
hoped  for  its  success  have  practically  given  up  their  hope, 
or  have  at  least  lost  their  enthusiastic  assurance  in  its  effec- 
tiveness ;  and  though  the  cause  is  far  from  being  lost,  and  the 
work  of  so  many  wise  and  high-minded  men  has,  we  must 
hope,  not  been  in  vain,  the  present  position  and  influence  of 
the  League  as  constituted  is  far  from  being  what  it  ought  to 
be.  The  question,  therefore,  before  us  is,  whether  the  present 
constitution  of  the  League  cannot  be  replaced  by  another,  or 
at  least,  whether  it  cannot  be  modified  in  certain  directions  to 
restore  the  efficiency  and  prestige  which  it  had  at  the  outset 
all  over  the  world,  and  to  ensure  its  help  during  the  present 
crisis  and  those  that  are  coming,  to  put  right  the  conditions  of 
the  civilised  world  which  are  completely  awry.  It  is  our 
duty,  and  would  be  an  unpardonable  sin  of  omission  on  our 
part  if  we  did  not  do  our  best,  to  save  the  position,  and  even 
to  strengthen  the  life  and  dominance  of  this  greatest  move- 
ment in  the  world's  history. 

In  simple  words,  the  world  at  large  has  lost  faith  as  regards 
confidence  in  the  assured  impartiality  and  justice  of  the 
League  as  now  constituted  ;  while,  on  the  other  hand,  it  is 
rightly  convinced  that  the  League  as  such  (in  contradistinction 
to  the  Allied  Council  of  Great  Powers)  is  in  no  way  in  a  position 
to  enforce  the  carrying  out  of  its  decisions.  The  result  is 
quite  analogous  to  the  attitude  naturally  taken  up  by  the 
world  with  regard  to  the  Hague  Conference.  The  complicated 
constitution  of  the  League — which  gives  sign  of  so  much  intense 
labour  and  the  surrender  in  compromise  of  the  convictions 
of  its  several  promoters — gives  clear  evidence  of  the  desire  on 
the  part  of  the  framers  to  uphold  the  claims  of  the  sovereignty 
and  prescriptive  and  traditional  rights  of  the  several  States, 
and  the  result  is  an  imperfect  compromise.  Not  only  those 
opposed  to  the  League,  but  the  world  at  large,  is  therefore  not 
convinced  that  the  one  object  aimed  at  is  the  substitution  of 
a  New  Order  for  the  Old  Order,  especially  with  regard  to  the 
foreign  policy  of  nations  and  the  attainment  of  the  one 


LEAGUE   OF   NATIONS  411 

immediate  and  ultimate  aim — the  ensurance  of  pure  justice  as 
a  sovereign  force  to  which  all  other  sovereignty  admittedly 
will,  and  in  fact  must,  bow.  It  is  this  bugbear  of  national 
sovereignty  which  consciously  or  subconsciously  has  stood, 
and  will  stand,  in  the  way  of  a  clear  formulation  of  any  inter- 
national or  supernational  body  which  can  ensure  peace  in  the 
world. 

Let  me  at  once  say  that  the  world  is  certainly  not  ripe  for 
a  Supernational  State,  for  "  the  Parliament  of  Man,  the 
Federation  of  the  World,"  not  even  for  a  Supernational 
Legislature,  and,  I  may  add,  not  even  for  a  Supernational 
Court  (in  the  technical  sense  of  that  term),  which  administers 
justice  on  the  basis  of  a  fixed  code  of  law  to  which  all  nations 
have  given  their  sanction.  But  all  nations  and  all  their  citi- 
zens will  admit  that  they  will  bow  to  Justice  so  far  as  it  is 
realisable  in  this  imperfect  world  of  ours.  I  may,  by  the  way, 
also  refer  you,  as  regards  that  critical  point  concerning  national 
sovereignty,  to  the  short  and  able  treatment  of  that  question 
in  the  article  of  Lord  Robert  Cecil  to  which  I  have  already 
referred,  and  perhaps  also  to  my  own  treatment  of  the  subject 
in  my  previous  writings.  I  should  merely  like  to  add  one  word 
on  this  point :  that  national  sovereignty  never  has  been  as 
absolute  as  its  champions  endeavour  to  make  out,  even  in  the 
past  centuries  of  pure  dynastic  autocracy.  Further,  every 
international  treaty,  or  convention  among  States,  is  a  limita- 
tion of  sovereignty.  A  short  time  ago  the  postage  of  local 
letters  in  several  European  countries  was  necessarily  raised  to 
very  nearly  the  same  height  as  letters  to  distant  portions  of 
the  United  States.  While  these  autonomous  governments 
were  quite  free  reasonably  to  raise  their  rate  of  postage  to 
meet  financial  exigencies  within  their  own  country,  they  felt 
powerless  to  apply  this  equitable  rise  in  scale  to  the  various 
countries  within  the  Postal  Union  because  of  their  convention 
with  them.  They  rightly  bowed,  whatever  the  "  law  of 
necessity  "  might  be,  to  the  just  obligations  they  had  once 
incurred. 

Now,  the  constitution  of  the  United  States  is  broad  and 
simple  in  its  meaning  and  phrasing,  avoids  all  complicated 
details,  and  is  published  in  a  few  pages  of  print.  It  determines 
the  relationship  between  the  fluid  and  growing  number  of 


412  APPENDIX 

States  within  a  great  continent,  their  complicated  inter- 
relation in  life,  commerce  and  politics  among  each  other,  and 
to  the  Federal  Government  as  a  whole.  It  has  maintained  its 
constraining  moral  power  up  to  the  present  day,  when  about 
one  hundred  million  people  live  in  peace  under  its  sway.  It 
has  been  subjected  to  but  eighteen  amendments  during  nearly 
one  hundred  and  fifty  years,  of  which  eleven  were  added 
within  the  first  two  years,  and  only  two  amendments  were  of 
what  might  be  called  essential  importance. 

When  now  we  turn  to  the  articles  of  the  Covenant,  the 
constitution  of  the  Council  and  of  the  Assembly,  and  of  their 
relations  to  one  another  ;  the  fact  that  unanimity  is  required 
to  make  valid  so  many  important  decisions  of  the  Council ; 
the  punctilious  regard  for  traditional  rights  and  interests, 
often  in  themselves  in  direct  conflict  to  a  broader  international 
justice — all  these  elements  counteract  conviction  and  faith 
in  the  practical  efficiency  of  such  a  Constitution.  To  a  still 
greater  degree,  tending  in  this  direction,  is  the  fact  that  the 
Council  itself  and,  to  a  lesser  degree,  the  Assembly  as  well, 
are  made  up  of  the  representatives  (especially  as  regards  the 
Council)  of  a  limited  number  of  the  leading  States,  and,  more- 
over, the  representatives  of  the  party  in  power  in  the  demo- 
cratic States,  who  thus,  I  need  hardly  say,  do  not  always,  or 
necessarily,  represent  the  unanimous,  or  even  predominant, 
opinion  of  the  nation  itself.  With  all  these  national  repre- 
sentatives on  this  supreme  national  body,  however,  there  is  one 
grave  fault,  namely,  that,  from  the  nature  and  method  of  their 
appointment  (and  this  is  certainly  the  case  with  the  Council) 
they  are  inherently  representative  of  the  national  interests 
which  they  impersonate.  They  have,  as  it  were,  a  mandate 
to  represent  such  national  interests  as  official  representatives 
of  the  government  of  the  day  (however  desirous  they  may 
be  of  upholding  fairness  in  all  their  dealings  and  decisions), 
and  are  not  distinctly,  absolutely  and  solemnly  appointed  to 
administer  supernational  justice  and  nothing  else. 

These  are  the  elements  in  the  constitution  of  the  League 
itself,  which  weaken,  if  they  do  not  destroy,  the  faith  which 
the  world  at  large  desires  to  place  in  its  absolute  impartiality 
and  justice.  But  when  we  come  to  the  actual  history  during 
the  international  crises  of  the  world  since  the  League  has 


LEAGUE    OF    NATIONS  413 

been  constituted  and  prepared  to  take  up  its  work,  the 
immediate  causes  for  the  loss  of  faith  in  the  League  are 
numerous  and  patent.  For  manifest  reasons,  the  powerless 
League  could  not  be  invoked  to  clear  up  on  the  lines  of  equity 
and  justice  the  difficulties  which  beset  the  completion  of  the 
Peace  Treaty  and  the  many  new  difficulties  which  have  since 
then  arisen.  Its  powers  of  deliberation  were  still  further 
compromised  and  weakened,  if  not  totally  ignored,  as  it  was 
also  not  endowed  with  any  physical  power  to  enforce  its 
decisions.  All  the  problems  of  these  later  days  were  therefore 
determined  by  the  Council  of  the  Great  Powers,  with  the  loss  of 
some  of  its  chief  representatives,  until  practically  it  has  been  in 
the  hands  of  two  great  and  patriotic  men,  representing  two  of 
the  leading  great  nations  of  the  world,  each  burdened  with  a 
world  of  commitments  and  just  obligations  to  their  own  coun- 
tries as  well  as  to  their  Allies  ;  but  each  of  them  honestly, 
strenuously,  and  with  admirable  devotion  bent  upon  the 
preservation  of  the  world's  peace. 

But,  meanwhile,  where  has  the  League  of  Nations  been, 
solemnly  inaugurated  with  so  much  labour  by  the  chief 
representatives  of  all  the  greater  and  smaller  leading  nations 
in  the  world  ?  Is  it  to  be  wondered  at  that  people  have  lost 
faith  in  the  reality  and  effective  power  of  the  League  ? 
Finally,  we  come  to  the  action  of  the  United  States  in  with- 
drawing its  adhesion  and  support.  I  do  not  wish  to  judge, 
or  to  account  for,  the  action  of  the  United  States  Senate, 
or  of  other  political  bodies  in  that  friendly  country.  But 
so  much  is  clear,  that  they  have  taken  exception  chiefly  to  two 
of  the  articles  (XVI  and  III  with  annex).  Article  XVI  in 
certain  eventualities  committed  all  members  of  the  League  to 
intervention  with  their  armed  forces  to  uphold  certain  decisions 
of  the  League,  which,  they  maintained,  amounting  to  a 
declaration  of  war,  is  contrary  to  their  constitution,  by  which 
war  can  only  be  declared  after  due  Parliamentary  deliberation 
and  decision.  Article  III,  with  annex,  placed  this  nation  of 
about  one  hundred  million  people,  in  the  very  forefront  of 
modern  civilisation  and  power,  in  an  inferiority  as  regards  the 
number  of  its  representatives,  compared,  let  us  say,  to  the 
British  Empire,  including  its  Dominions.  I  need  not  dwell 
upon  the  essential  importance  of  what  this  secession  from  the 


414  APPENDIX 

body  of  the  League  means.  I  consider  it  fatal ;  unless  it 
were  possible  to  meet  the  objections  thus  raised  by  the  United 
States  by  a  modification  of  the  constitution  of  the  League  as 
it  now  stands.  Only  if  such  fairly  modified  Covenant  were 
rejected,  would  it  be  wise  and  just  to  continue  in  our  efforts 
towards  peace  without  the  co-operation  of  the  United  States. 

Can  such  amendments  be  made,  and,  if  so,  what  are  they  ? 

In  proposing  such  a  scheme  there  is  but  one  fear  which 
would  prevent  my  giving  expression  to  it,  that  is  the  fear  of 
the  charge  of  grotesque  presumptuousness.  But  when  con- 
viction is  deep,  honest,  and  not  hasty,  it  would  be  wrong  and 
cowardly  to  give  way  to  such  fear.  I  am  confirmed  in  the 
Tightness  of  my  course  by  the  fact  that  the  proposal  I  have 
to  make  is  not  hasty,  but  has  been  matured  during  many 
years,  and,  above  all,  in  that  I  have  the  benefit  of  all  the 
wisdom  and  the  work  lavished  by  the  framers  of  the  Covenant 
upon  the  plan  which  they  have  laid  before  the  world.  I 
must  ever  remind  myself,  as  I  beg  also  to  remind  you,  that  it 
is  always  easier  to  find  fault  with  the  work  of  others  and  to 
suggest  amendments  than  it  is  positively  to  initiate  a  new 
great  and  elaborate  work  of  construction.  From  this  ex  post 
facto  point  of  view  may  I  therefore  be  allowed  to  suggest  what 
might  have  been  a  more  efficient  course  to  pursue  in  the 
disentanglement  of  this  immense  and  complex  crisis  in  the 
world's  history. 

In  the  light  of  what  has  since  happened,  and  is  transpiring 
now,  we  are  justified  in  maintaining  that  the  ideal  procedure 
on  the  part  of  the  assembled  Paris  Peace  Conference  would 
have  been  to  initiate  and  to  carry  through  with  all  possible 
rapidity  all  the  broad  conditions  of  peace  with  regard  to  all 
the  different  points  and  corresponding  articles,  with  the  express 
proviso  that  all  further  questions  or  doubtful  points  were  to 
be  referred  for  final  decision  to  the  International  Body  which 
they  were,  by  the  emphatic  consent  of  all  the  contracting 
parties,  to  call  into  existence,  and  which  was  clearly  to  furnish 
the  highest  conceivable  effectiveness  in  deciding  with  pure 
fairness  and  justice  each  doubtful  or  contentious  case.  Thus 
one  of  the  chief,  if  not  the  essential,  decision  of  the  whole 
Peace  Treaty  would  have  been  the  agreement  to  establish 
such  an  international,  or  rather  supernational,  body  to 


LEAGUE   OF   NATIONS  415 

secure  justice  and  to  entrust  it  with  this  first  and  supreme 
Mandate. 

Failing  the  creation  and  effective  equipment  of  a  Super- 
national  Police  Force  under  the  direct  control  of  this  Super- 
national  Body,  the  Allies  would  have  bound  themselves  to 
retain  in  existence  a  quota  of  their  complete  military  forces, 
as  heretofore  under  the  Commander-in-Chief,  to  be  placed, 
in  case  of  need,  at  the  disposal  of  this  Supernational  Body 
to  enforce  its  decisions — in  the  first  place,  above  all,  in  carry- 
ing out  the  terms  of  the  Treaty  itself,  subject  to  its  decision 
in  all  questions  that  were  left  undecided,  after  hearing  the 
arguments  of  both  sides. 

There  would  then  follow  the  careful  framing  of  the  constitu- 
tion of  this  Supernational  Body  on  the  broad  lines  previously 
agreed  to.  Now,  this  Supernational  Body  was  distinctly 
not  to  be  anything  of  the  nature  of  a  Supernational  State, 
nor  of  a  Supernational  Legislative  Body,  though  its  decisions 
might,  in  the  course  of  time,  be  incorporated  into  something 
approaching  to  the  common  law  of  England  as  it  has  been 
evolved  through  centuries  of  growth.  It  was  not  to  be  even 
a  Supernational  Court  in  the  strict  meaning  of  that  term, 
namely,  a  body  of  technically  qualified  jurists  to  administer 
law,  for  the  simple  reason,  among  others,  that  no  such  law 
exists  to  which  the  sanction  of  all  nations  has  been  given. 
It  would  simply  be  a  Supernational  Jury  ;  and  in  this,  by 
analogy  to  the  history  of  English  common  law,  it  would  follow 
the  same  natural  and  rational  process  of  evolution.  Professor 
A.  F.  Pollard  has  strikingly  exemplified  this  process  in  the 
history  of  English  law  in  the  establishment  of  the  beginnings 
of  the  trial  by  jury  in  the  time  of  Henry  II. 

"The  analogy  comes  from  the  somewhat  distant  past 
when  men  were  striving  to  find  some  alternative  to  private 
war  as  a  means  to  settling  claims  to  property,  just  as  we  are 
to-day  seeking  another  means  than  war  of  settling  inter- 
national disputes.  I  refer  to  the  social  circumstances  amid 
which  Henry  II  succeeded  to  the  throne.  The  civil  war  of 
Stephen's  reign  had  produced  as  many  claimants,  on  an 
average,  to  each  estate,  as  there  are  now  to  Constantinople, 
to  Fiume,  or  to  Lemberg  ;  and  then,  as  now,  the  only  arbitra- 
ment recognised  by  custom  was  the  sword  for  gentlemen  of 
honour  or  the  ordeal  for  less  military  folk.  The  claimant 


416  APPENDIX 

challenged  the  possessor  to  single  combat,  and  the  defendant 
had  to  fight  or  forfeit  his  title  ;  he  was  never  secure  except 
in  his  preparedness  for  battle,  and,  to  quote  Bernhardi's 
statement  of  modern  militarist  doctrine,  '  what  was  right 
was  determined  by  the  arbitrament  of  war.'  How  and  in 
what  order  of  procedure  did  Henry  II  deal  with  the  problem  ? 
Amateur  historians  may  reply  that  it  was  an  easy  matter  for 
him  because  he  had  the  machinery  of  a  national  State  behind 
him.  But  in  fact  there  was  hardly  a  national  government 
at  all ;  there  was  no  standing  army  at  the  Crown's  disposal 
for  the  purpose,  no  police,  no  public  opinion  ;  and  the  com- 
batants were  as  much  addicted  and  inured  to  the  arbitrament 
of  the  sword  as  nations  are  to-day.  Henry  II  had  fewer 
means  of  dealing  with  his  problem  that  we  have  with  ours, 
and  hence  the  value  of  the  precedent  he  set. 

"  He  did  not  attempt  to  create  a  new  constitution,  but 
limited  himself  to  practical  matters  of  detail.  He  provided 
possessors  of  land  with  a  new  writ  out  of  chancery,  called  the 
writ  <Le  pace  habenda.  This,  without  any  inquiry  into  the 
merits  of  the  case,  placed  at  their  disposal  whatever  resources 
the  Crown  might  possess  as  a  protector  against  a  challenger  ; 
it  simply  prohibited  aggression.  By  itself  it  was  as  inadequate 
a  means  of  justice  as  our  proposed  moratorium,  but  its  value 
lay  in  its  natural  consequences.  There  were  claimants  with 
a  good  title  just  as  there  were  possessors  with  a  bad ;  and  they 
naturally  came  to  Henry  with  the  justice  of  their  case.  We 
can — descending  to  modern  vernacular — imagine  the  gist  of 
Henry's  reply  :  '  Now  you  are  beginning  to  talk ;  you  abandon, 
do  you,  your  argument  of  might  and  arbitrament  of  the  sword, 
and  are  content  to  rely  on  the  justice  of  your  claim  ?  In 
that  case  we  will  see  what  can  be  done  for  you.'  And  he 
provided  a  further  method  of  procedure,  this  time  for  the 
claimant.  It  was  to  the  effect  that  he  might  have  a  writ 
ordering  the  election  of  jurors,  sworn  to  declare  the  facts  as 
they  knew  them,  and  requiring  both  the  parties  to  abide  by 
their  decision.  Thus  was  substituted  the  test  of  evidence  as 
to  right  for  the  proof  of  might  in  battle,  and  out  of  these  writs 
there  grew  in  time  our  system  of  trial  by  jury,  the  perpetual 
English  example  to  the  world  of  the  triumph  of  argument 
over  force." 

Now,  the  functions  of  this  Supernational  Jury  would,  in 
the  first  instance,  be  strictly  limited  to  the  international 
questions  which  for  the  time  being  were  entrusted  to  it  for 
solution  and  would  not  extend  its  functions  beyond  this, 
excepting  when,  in  the  course  of  time,  at  the  unqualified 


LEAGUE   OF   NATIONS  417 

request  and  invitation  of  all  the  contending  parties,  they  were 
asked  thus  to  extend  their  activity,  the  whole  tendency 
perhaps  leading  ultimately,  in  the  remote  future,  to  an  ideal 
Confederate  Super-State — the  Parliament  of  Man,  the  Federa- 
tion of  the  World. 

This  Supernational  Jury  would  have  but  one  immediate 
and  ultimate  duty  and  function  :  to  decide,  after  due  plead- 
ings on  the  part  of  experts  of  both  sides,  in  the  spirit  of 
impartiality  with  the  ami  of  establishing  pure  justice.  Though 
there  would  exist  between  them  and  our  ordinary  juries  a 
strong  analogy  of  power  and  function,  the  essential  difference 
would  be  that  they  would  not  be  chosen  at  haphazard  from 
among  all  available  citizens,  who  by  antecedents,  locality, 
business  and  profession  in  life,  might,  as  is  so  often  the  case, 
be  biased  in  their  judgment,  and,  still  more  important,  would 
be  essentially  unfitted  to  such  delicate  work  of  sifting  evidence 
and  of  maintaining  high  ideals  of  abstract  justice  ;  but  they 
would  be,  as  it  were,  expert  representatives  of  honourableness, 
fairness,  of  clearness  and  loftiness  of  mind  and  life.  They 
would  be  chosen  in  each  country  professedly  from  among 
those  citizens  whose  manifest  record  was  highest  in  these 
directions  ;  and  would  thus  not  be  either  professional  jurists 
or  [statesmen,  certainly  not  the  manifest  and  professed 
guardians  of  national  prosperity  [and  interests — the  actual 
members  of  any  Government. 

I  confess  that  an  initial  difficulty  exists  in  determining  the 
national  authority  who  in  each  State  would  appoint  such 
representatives.  But  I  may  say  that  this  problem  is  far  from 
being  insoluble,  and  that  this  power  might  in  every  country 
be  vested  in  authorities  which  would  at  least  free  their 
appointees  from  the  charge  of  being  representative  of  one 
party  or  class  interest.  Above  all,  they  would  distinctly  have 
no  mandate  to  represent,  and  to  contend  for,  the  individual 
interests  of  their  own  country,  as  little  as  a  judge  would  be 
expected  to  be  guided  by  his  own  natural  local  interests  and 
those  of  consanguinity.  With  the  greatest  possible  solemnity 
they  would  upon  appointment  bind  themselves  to  counteract 
all  such  elements  of  partiality  and  to  give  their  decisions  purely 
in  the  spirit  of  absolute  justice. 

This  Supernational  Jury  would  in  numbers   be  a   large 

28 


418  APPENDIX 

body,  and  I  may  add  that  the  larger  and  more  varied, 
the  greater  the  security  of  impartiality  and  freedom  from  all 
dangers  of  collusion  and  intrigue.  I  need  not  dwell  upon  the 
preventive  measures  which  might  be  taken  by  the  body  itself 
to  repair  any  manifest  infringement  of  these  fundamental 
laws  of  conduct  on  the  part  of  the  members.  They  are  readily 
devised. 

The  full  members  of  the  League  would  all  be  represented  on 
this  jury  ;  but,  of  course,  the  full  membership  would  be  a  fluid 
body,  as  the  process  of  conversion  from  Territories  to  States 
in  the  United  States  also  provides  for  the  increase  of  the 
constituent  membership  of  that  great  federation. 

As  regards  the  numbers  of  representatives,  these  would  be 
determined  in  the  ratio  of  the  number  of  inhabitants  in  each 
State  (by  the  millions),  but  it  would  be  fixed  by  a  maximum 
and  a  minimum.  The  minimum  would  naturally  be  one 
representative  ;  the  maximum  would  also  be  fixed  so  that 
no  one  State  should  have  an  undue  preponderance.  The 
apparent  difficulties  in  fixing  such  a  maximum  are  in  no  way 
insuperable,  but  I  do  not  wish  to  take  up  time  by  entering 
into  a  lengthy  discussion  on  this  point.  The  same  applies 
with  regard  to  the  full  admission  of  such  vast  dominions  and 
population  as  that,  for  instance,  of  China,  with  its  400  million 
inhabitants.  At  present  there  are  45  States  already  belonging 
to  the  League,  and  there  are  25  other  States  asking  for  admis- 
sion. It  will  readily  be  seen  that  this  jury  will  represent  a 
large  body,  but  prospectively  not  larger  than  that  of  any  of 
the  Parliaments  of  modern  States. 

Now,  though  it  would  be  foolish  to  assume  that  in  this  world 
of  ours  unfailing  absolute  justice  can  always  be  secured,  I 
am  ready  to  throw  down  the  gauntlet  to  anybody  who  would 
maintain  that  he  could  devise  or  imagine  a  body  less  likely  to 
be  partial,  and  more  likely  to  administer  pure  justice,  than 
such  a  select  body  of  men  from  every  civilised  State,  chosen 
because  of  untarnished  reputation  and  high  standing  and 
solemnly  bound  to  administer  justice — a  body,  moreover, 
each  member  of  which  has  during  the  time  of  holding  this 
high  office  relinquished,  in  so  far,  his  own  nationality. 

Of  course  this  purely  judiciary  function  will  necessarily  be 
accompanied  by  certain  administrative  functions.  But  these 


LEAGUE   OF   NATIONS  419 

administrative  functions  would  be  limited  to  those  imme- 
diately concerned  with  their  international  judiciary  work,  and 
would,  in  so  far,  be  assigned  to  sub-committees,  or  to  co-opted 
experts  and  assessors  in  these  definite  administrative  tasks. 
This  would,  above  all,  apply  to  the  administration  of  the  Inter- 
national Police  Fore.,  following  upon  the  relative  disarmament 
of  all  nations. 

Apart  from  all  moral  and  social  considerations,  the  economic 
conditions  of  the  world  make  the  establishment  of  such  a 
Super-national  Police  Force  an  absolute  necessity  in  the 
future.  The  bankrupt  nations  of  the  civilised  world  will 
never  be  able  to  continue  the  pre-war  traditions  of  national 
defensive  armament ;  and  the  more  uncertain  and  threatening 
conditions  of  international  life  become  to  all  States  in  the 
immediate  future,  the  less,  under  the  economic  conditions  of 
the  present,  will  it  be  possible  to  meet  the  growing  enormous 
demands.  There  is  no  other  alternative  open  to  us  from  the 
pure  business  point  of  view,  and  we  must  follow  the  current 
of  modern  business  in  other  spheres  in  devising  this  form  of 
"  pooling  "  in  the  interests  of  national  self-preservation  to  all 
of  us  and  of  the  peace  of  the  world. 

The  Supernational  Police  Force  would  distinctly  not  be 
made  up  of  quotas  of  national  armies  as  such.  If  not  im- 
possible, it  is  still  very  unlikely  that  we  shall  always  find  that 
national  armies  will  themselves  fight  in  the  interest  of  some 
remote  State,  and  still  more  unwillingly  would  they  fight  their 
own  nationals.  Nor  will  this  ever  form  a  cohesive  and  efficient 
army,  navy,  and  air  force.  But  this  Police  Force  would  consist 
of  those  individuals  from  every  nationality  who,  for  the  tune 
being,  after  swearing  fealty  to  the  Supernational  Body  itself, 
would  submerge  their  own  nationality  into  that  of  the  Super- 
national  Body,  and  who — as  many  thousands  in  every  nation 
can  readily  be  found — by  predisposition  and  by  acquired 
tastes,  had  chosen  the  profession  of  arms.  They  will  in  this 
respect  be  analogous  to  the  "mercenaries  "  of  old,  who  for 
centuries  formed  the  body  of  the  armies  waging  European 
wars  under  various  masters,  with  this  one  essential  difference  : 
that  their  loyalty  to  their  "  sovereign  "  will  not  be  conditioned 
solely  by  their  material  pay,  but  will  be  powerfully  effected 
by  the  moral  prestige  of  the  body  whom  they  serve  and  the 


420  APPENDIX 

ideal    and    supreme  cause  which  they  adopt  for  the  good 
of  the  world. 

Granted  relative  disarmament,  I  am  assured  by  military 
experts  that  a  concentrated  and  ever-ready  compact  army, 
navy,  and  air  force — ready  as  is  a  modern  fire  brigade  to 
hasten  to  the  extinction  of  any  conflagration  within  its 
reach — would  victoriously  sweep  through  any  district  of 
the  world.  Besides  the  central  force  at  the  immediate  call 
of  the  Supernational  Jury  in  its  fixed  habitation,  there 
would  be  numerous  and  more  remote  local  stations  all 
connected  by  wireless  telegraphy,  so  that  rapid  action  could 
at  once  be  taken  to  prevent  any  infraction  of  the  peace  against 
the  decision  of  the  Supernational  Jury.  In  course  of  time, 
with  the  growth  and  strengthening  of  public  opinion  through- 
out the  civilised  world  and  with  the  realisation  of  the  material 
power  backing  justice,  infractions  of  international  law  leading 
to  war  will  become  less  frequent  and  even  inconceivable. 
Though  passionate  crime  among  individuals  can  only  be 
punished  after  commission,  such  crime  is  caused  by  momentary 
passion  ;  whereas  the  waging  of  national  war,  implying  pre- 
paration and  complicated  mobilisation  of  forces,  all  of  which 
require  much  time  and  deliberation,  and  in  democracies  pass 
through  various  deliberate  phases,  is  distinctly  preventable 
when  individual  crime  is  not. 

There  are  only  two  infractions  of  national  sovereignty 
which  would  be  vested  in  the  power  of  the  Super- 
national  Jury,  which,  however,  are  essential.  The  first  is 
the  securing  of  disarmament  in  every  country  and  the  power 
to  check  all  attempts  at  clandestine  preparation  for  war  when 
this  is  notified  by  the  recognised  agents  accredited  to  each 
State.  The  second  is  the  control  of  its  own  publicity  and  the 
ensurance  of  truth  with  regard  to  international  relations 
throughout  the  world.  The  Supernational  Jury  must  have 
authority  for  the  most  effective  distribution  of  its  decisions 
and  pronouncements  among  the  population  of  every  one  of 
its  members  and  even  beyond  its  own  body,  as  it  must  also 
have  power  to  contradict  and  to  rectify  any  untrue  statement 
published  in  any  country  to  the  prejudice  of  international 
peace.  If  this  latter  power  had  existed  before,  by  itself  it 
might  have  prevented  most  wars  of  the  immediate  past,  as  it 


LEAGUE   OF    NATIONS  421 

would  prevent  misunderstandings  and  consequent  animosities 
among  the  several  civilised  peoples  at  this  very  moment.  For 
it  is  from  such  misunderstandings  and  misrepresentations, 
some  apparently  trivial  in  themselves,  that  the  seeds  of  the 
gravest  conflicts  are  sown  throughout  the  world. 

We  are  now  at  the  cross  roads  on  which  civilisation  progresses 
throughout  the  world,  and  which,  when  blocked  or  diverted, 
may  lead  to  war  and  ruin.  Though  in  no  way  wishing  to 
interfere  with  the  internal  political  life  of  a  great  and  free 
nation  like  the  United  States,  may  I  be  allowed  to  appeal  to 
the  American  people,  that  in  their  hands  again  lies  the  decision 
of  right  and  wrong,  good  and  evil,  prosperity  and  misery,  for 
the  whole  world — as  it  did  in  the  spring  of  1917  and  in  the 
autumn  of  1918.  Will  they  remain  outside  of  this  League  of 
Peace  and  turn  their  backs  on  their  brethren  and  their  blood- 
relations  of  the  Old  World,  and  say  to  themselves  :  "  What 
matter  is  their  life  and  prosperity  to  us  ?  "  With  the  new 
conditions  which  can  thus  be  substituted  and  which  meet  all 
the  objections  on  the  grounds  of  which  the  United  States 
Senate  felt  bound  to  step  out  of  the  Covenant  (for  they  will 
never  have  to  declare  war  at  the  command  of  any  other  Power, 
and  their  representation  on  the  Supernational  Jury  will  be 
justly  adequate  to  their  own  greatness  and  importance)  will 
not  either,  or  both,  parties  who  are  out  to  elect  the  chief 
magistrate  of  their  great  democracy  step  forward  and  propose 
some  positive  revision  of  the  Covenant  which  will  ensure  the 
firm  constitution  of  such  a  Supernational  Body  and  per- 
petuate peace  to  themselves  and  to  the  world  at  large  ?  In 
the  United  States  of  John  Hay,  President  Roosevelt,  and 
President  Taft,  as  well  as  of  President  Wilson,  the  League  of 
Nations  cannot  be  a  Party  Question. 


II 

RESPUBLICA   LITTERATORUM » 

CHER  MONSIEUR  JOHANNET, 

Dans  la  question  pleine  d'interet  et  d'importance  que 
vous  avez  eu  le  merite  de  poser  avec  des  anticipations  si 
suggestives,  il  me  semble  qu'il  y  a  deux  elements  essentiels 
qui  excitent  les  differences,  mais,  esperons-le,  qui  confirment 
aussi  les  harmonies  des  manieres  de  voir  : 

Et  d'abord  :  parmi  les  peuples  civilises,  est-ce  qu'un  accord 
plus  que  national — supra-national — entre  les  litterati  est 
possible  et  desirable  ?  Ou,  en  d'autres  termes,  est-il  possible 
de  produire  et  d'intensifier  un  patriotisme  international  comme 
il  existe  deja  un  patriotisme  national  ?  Ou  bien,  est-ce  que 
ce  patriotisme  international  est  une  chimere,  un  contre-sens, 
parce  que  1'element  international  agit  d'une  maniere  dissol- 
vante  quand  il  s'infiltre  dans  le  sentiment  du  patriotisme  ? 

Si  la  reponse  a  cette  question  est  affirmative,  reste  la 
deuxieme  :  est-ce  qu'une  association,  une  cooperation  ou  une 
organisation  de  1' intelligence — une  respublica  litter  atorum — 
promet  d'etre  vraiment  effective  dans  la  vie  sociale  et  politique 
du  monde,  ou  sera-t-elle  purement  ideale,  sans  vraie  influence; 
bref ,  completement  acade*mique  ? 

I. — Je  n'ai  pas  besoin  de  vous  dire — car  vous  les  connaissez 
— que  dans  mes  livres  Aristodemocracy ,  dans  Patriotism, 
National  and  International,  dans  The  English-speaking  Brother- 
hood and  the  League  of  Nations,  la  these  principale  repose  sur 
cet  internationalisme  patriotique.  Mais  qu'on  ne  dise  pas 
que  nous  sommes  des  internationalistes  "  pacifistes,"  Bolche- 
viks  ou  Marxistes,  qui  pendant  cette  guerre  auraient  refuse 

1  The  following  is  a  reply  to  an  Enquete  sent  by  M.  Ren6  Johannet, 
for  the  literary  magazine  Les  Lettres,  to  men  of  letters  of  various 
nationalities  and  shades  of  thought  on  a  possible  Respublica  Litter  atorum. 
It  appeared  in  the  April  issue  of  that  magazine,  1920. 

422 


RESPUBLICA   LITTERATORUM  423 

de  se  battre  pour  leur  patrie  et  la  Cause  ideale  de  1'Entente. 
Notre  internationalisme  n'exclut  pas  le  patriotisme  national, 
au  contraire,  il  se  base  sur  lui  et  il  le  confirme.  Dans  1'echelle 
des  passions  nobles  qui  remontent  de  1'egoisme  individuel, 
passant  par  la  famille,  notre  commune,  notre  pays  et  notre 
nation,  et  reconnaissant  tous  les  devoirs  qui  s'imposent  de  ces 
centres  materiels  et  de  sentiment,  nous  visons  a  1'unite  spiri- 
tuelle  et  sociale  de  1'humanite  civilisee  dont  nous  assurons  la 
paix  et  le  progres.  Nous  devons  toujours  nous  rappeler  les 
derniers  mots  de  miss  Cavell :  le  patriotisme  (national)  ne 
suffit  pas  (Patriotism  is  not  enough)  ! 

Le  patriotisme  international  n'est  pas  seulement  possible 
et  desirable,  mais  qui  plus  est  necessaire  pour  la  realisation 
du  patriotisme  national,  c'est  la  clef  de  voute  des  sentiments 
patriotiques.  Pour  la  litterature,  il  est  bien  vrai  qu'un  inter- 
nationalisme nebuleux  et  sans  caractere  reste  sterile.  II 
faut  s'alimenter  a  la  vie  reelle — in's  voile  Menschenleben — 
a  1'amour  de  la  famille,  du  home,  de  la  patrie.  La  forme  aussi 
nous  vient  de  notre  langage,  de  notre  milieu,  des  coutumes  de 
notre  pays.  C'est  par  ce  caractere  national,  distinctif,  per- 
sonnel que  nous  devenons  universels.  C'est  ainsi  que  Homere, 
Dante,  Shakespeare,  Moliere,  se  sont  interesses  a  l'humanite 
entiere.  C'est  la  forme  qui,  d'apres  Aristote,  se  marie  avec 
la  substance  et  cree  1'ceuvre  d'art.  Mais  cette  substance, 
c'est  la  vie  entiere  et  eternelle,  la  vie  des  idees,  le  Bon,  le  Vrai, 
la  Beaute,  la  Justice  ;  elle  appartient  a  tous  les  pays,  a  toutes 
les  nations  et  elle  unifie  l'humanite.  Sans  ces  id6es  universelles, 
pas  de  pens6e,  pas  d'art,  pas  de  litterature,  et  surtout,  pas  de 
justice  ni  de  paix  parmi  les  hommes.  Ce  sont  les  seules  realites 
durables. 

II. — L'autre  jour,  un  de  vos  hommes  d'Etat  les  plus 
6minents,  au  cours  d'une  conversation,  nous  declarait :  "En 
somme,  Messieurs,  il  n'y  a  que  les  philosophes  qui  comptent 
C'est  eux  qui  ont  fait  la  revolution  du  xvin'  siecle."  Et  il 
citait  d'autres  exemples  frappants  de  1'histoire.  J'osai  lui 
repondre :  "  Monsieur,  je  prends  note  de  cette  remarque. 
Si,  plus  tard,  dans  un  de  vos  discours,  je  vous  surprends  a 
dire  :  '  Tout  cela,  c'est  de  la  theorie,  ce  sont  de  belles  idees  de 
penseurs  qui  ne  connaissent  pas  la  vie  pratique,  les  complications 
de  la  politique  reelle,  la  force  maitresse  des  fails  materiels  et 


424  APPENDIX 

economiques,  qui  produisent  par  eux-memes  les  evenements  et 
les  changements. — Vos  idees ,  si  vraies  et  si  bonnes  qu'elles  soient, 
n'exercent  aucune  influence  sur  le  cours  de  la  vie,'  je  vous 
enverrai  un  billet  contenant  les  paroles  que  vous  venez  de 
prononcer. — Eh  bien  !  ce  grand  homme  avail  raison.  C'est 
I'ideologie  qui  est  la  force  veritable.  Non  seulement  indirecte- 
ment,  par  toutes  les  avenues  de  1'education  pedagogique  et 
publique  et  par  les  vagues  idees  dominantes  du  Zeitgeist,  mais 
directement  par  leur  force  intrinseque.  Les  grands  legis- 
lateurs  de  I'humanit6,  Hammourabi,  Moise,  Solon,  Lycurgue, 
etaient  des  philosophes,  des  litterati ;  Alexandre  Hamilton 
est  1'auteur  direct  de  la  Constitution  des  l£tats-Unis,  et  cette 
Constitution  a  toujours  et6,  et  est  encore,  la  force  la  plus  de- 
cisive de  la  politique  interieure  ou  exterieure  de  lAmerique — 
qui  meme  determine  la  realisation  du  Traite  de  Paix.  Je  suis 
las  d'entendre  perpetuellement  la  voix — ecceurante,  insultante, 
dedaigneuse  des  sceptiques  et  des  cyniques,  ou  encore  des 
"  hommes  pratiques,"  qui  connaissent  "  la  vie  telle  qu'elle 
est  "  ;  de  cette  arrogance  du  pessimisme,  qui  sourit  avec  une 
tolerance  bienveillante  mais  pleine  de  mepris  devant  les  fougues 
de  roptimisme  qui  lutte  avec  une  ardeur  positive  en  faveur 
de  1' amelioration  des  hommes,  des  societes  et  du  monde  ! 
II  y  a  dans  cette  attitude  une  arrogance  de  critique  negative — 
peut-etre  inconsciente,  mais  enivrante — comparable  a  celle 
que  les  peres  et  les  maitres  portent  a  leurs  enfants,  qui  n'ont 
pas  encore  subi  les  disillusions  de  Texistence.  Eh  bien, 
non,  nous  ne  sommes  pas  depourvus  de  "  sens  commun  " 
parce  que  nous  regardons  en  face  I'id6al  et  que  nous  voulons 
tendre  a  sa  realisation,  meme  si  ce  n'est  que  par  un  petit  pas. 
Qui  leur  dit  que  nous  n'avons  pas  v£cu  et  souffert  comme 
eux  ?  Si  nous  insistons  sur  le  bon  qu'il  y  a  dans  la  nature 
humaine,  c'est  justement  pour  y  faire  appel. 

Nous  connaissons  bien  aussi  le  mat  et  sa  force,  la  force  de 
Fegoisme,  de  la  stupidite",  de  la  convoitise,  de  1'indolence 
et  de  la  lachete  qui  dominent  les  actions  et  les  pensees  des 
individus  et  des  masses.  Mais  nous  voulons  pour  le  moment 
1'ignorer,  afin  que  la  force  positive  puisse  s'agiter  et  grandir 
par  des  elans  positifs. 

Nous  avons  en  effet  cette  grande  confiance,  que  les  idees 
vraies  et  bonnes  sont  les  seules  forces  qui  persistent  dans  le 


RESPUBLICA   LITTERATORUM  425 

monde — qu'elles  sont  la  force  mat6rielle  qui  persiste  et  mene 
k  la  victoire  finale,  quels  que  soient  les  va-et-vients  des  batailles 
d'un  jour  et  les  defaites  momentanees. 

Eh  bien  !  les  champions  des  Idees,  c'est  nous,  les  litterati, 
les  intellectuels.  Par  litterati ,  je  n 'en tends  pas  seulement  les 
po£tes,  les  romanciers,  les  ecrivains  de  profession.  Souvent 
ceux  d'un  meme  pays  se  haissent  ou  se  jalousent,  tandis  qu'il 
y  a  plus  de  parente  entre  ceux  de  differentes  nationality's, 
quand  ils  sont  capables  d'harmoniser  leurs  pensees  et  leurs 
aspirations,  qu'entre  ceux  d'un  meme  sang. 

Ce  n'est  pas  dans  1'esprit  du  Docteur  Pangloss  ni  de  M.  de 
la  Palisse  qu'il  faut  se  rappeler  la  grande  verite  :  L 'Union 
fait  la  Force. — Organisons-nous !  Nous  n'aurons  jamais 
besoin  de  Comites  secrets.  Nous  n'aurons  rien  a  cacher. 
Nous  ne  craindrons  jamais  la  publicite  absolue — au  contraire, 
elle  nous  est  essentielle.  Les  Bolcheviks  connaissent  la  force 
de  1'union  et  aussi  les  internationalistes  Marxistes.  Ayons  de 
1'Union,  nous  autres,  Chevaliers  du  Saint-Esprit  \  La  diffe- 
rence entre  nous  et  "  1'organisation  du  Proletariat,"  c'est  que 
nous  ne  sommes  pas  une  classe  ;  nous  sommes  tous  des  travail- 
leurs  ;  mais  le  travail  n'est  pas  seulement  manuel  et  le  but 
de  notre  action  collective  n'est  pas  la  realisation  de  nos  interets 
de  classe,  la  domination  de  notre  caste — mais  la  domination 
des  idees  directrices  de  1'humanite  :  la  Justice,  la  Verite,  la 
Bonte,  et  la  Beaute  ! 

Sous  nos  pas  cadences  faisons  sonner  la  terre. 
Jetons  nos  gants  de  fer  et  donnons-nous  la  main, 
C'est  nous  qui  conduirons  aux  conqudtes  du  Pdre, 
Les  colonnes  du  genre  humain  ! 

Agreez,  je  vous  prie,  mes  sentiments  les  plus  distingues. 


Ill1 

LA    SOCIETE   DES   NATIONS   CONTRE   L'ANARCHIE 
NATIONALE  ET  INTERNATIONALE 

INTRODUCTION 

ON  est  ravi  lorsque,  s'attendant  de  voir  un  auteur,  on  trouve 
un  homme  !  Qu'on  me  pardonne  de  rappeler  ici  cette  pensee 
de  Pascal,  tant  de  fois  citee.  Je  ne  saurais  mieux  resumer 
1' impression  que  me  laisse  la  lecture  du  present  article.  Gra- 
duede  Cambridge,  de  Columbia  (New- York),  de  Heidelberg, 
ancien  professeur  de  Beaux-Arts,  puis  d'Archeologie  a  1'Uni- 
versite  de  Cambridge,  ancien  directeur  de  1'^cole  americaine 
des  etudes  classiques  a  Athenes,  auteur  de  nombreux  ouvrages 
tant  d'archeologie  que  de  politique  et  de  philosophic  morale, 
parmi  lesquels  son  Aristodemocratie,  entre  autres,  a  excit£ 
le  plus  vif  interet,  Sir  Walston,  d'origine  autrichienne,  sujet 
anglais  ne  et  eleve  en  Amerique,  nourri  de  connaissances 
variees  puisees  dans  de  nombreux  voyages,  traite  aujourd'hui 
des  questions  morales  et  politiques  que  souleve  la  guerre  avec 
une  competence  et  une  sagacite  auxquelles,  de  toutes  parts, 
les  critiques  rendent  hommage. 

Quoi  de  plus  interessant  que  de  voir  abordes  par  un  homme 
si  exceptionnellement  prepare"  pour  les  etudier,  les  problemes 
relatifs  aux  causes  de  la  guerre,  aux  conditions  d'une  paix 
durable,  a  la  notion  de  nationalite,  a  la  nature  de  1'organisa- 
tion  internationale  qu'il  convient  d'elaborer  si  Ton  veut  que 
cette  constitution  reponde  effectivement  a  son  objet.  Devou6 
a  la  cause  de  la  paix,  M.  Walston  n'est  nullement  un  pacifiste. 
Ce  fut,  selon  lui,  1'honneur  de  I'humanite,  lors  de  1'agression 
allemande,  de  preferer  la  liberte  dans  la  lutte  et  le  sacrifice 
a  la  paix  dans  la  servitude.  Le  pacifisme,  d'ailleurs,  n'a-t-il 

1  The  following  article,  with  an  Introduction  by  the  late  M.  fimile 
Boutroux,  appeared  in  the  Renaissance  Politique  of  Paris  on  April  24, 
1920. 

426 


LA   SOCIETE   DES    NATIONS  427 

pas  sa  lourde  responsabilite  dans  1'explosion  de  la  guerre  en 
1914  ?  "  Hatons-nous,  ecrivait  le  general  von  Bernhardi, 
d'6craser  1'Angleterre  et  la  France,  tandis  que  ces  nations  sont 
6nervees  par  le  pacifisme,  tandis  que  nous-memes  resistons 
encore  a  la  contagion." 

M.  Walston  demande  que,  decidement  et  radicalement, 
la  notion  de  nationalite  morale,  fondee  sur  le  libre  consente- 
ment  des  populations,  soit  substitute  a  celle  de  nationalite 
ethnique,  consistant  dans  la  communaute  de  race,  de  langue, 
de  religion,  de  coutumes.  A  ce  principe,  qui  est  le  leur, 
les  Francais  adherent  naturellement.  Us  n'omettent  pas, 
d'ailleurs,  le  lien  de  ce  principe  avec  celui  que  Ton  appelle 
le  principe  ethnique  et  qui,  en  fait,  n'est  autre  que  celui  des 
ressemblances,  soit  innees,  soit  acquises.  L'ideal  humain, 
c'est  le  maximum  d'harmonie  entre  des  nations  presentant 
le  maximum  de  variete. 

Comment  obtenir  cette  harmonic  ?  Reprenant  1'idee  de  la 
plus  pure  democratic,  M.  Walston  congoit  un  Conseil  inter- 
national dont  les  membres  seraient  charges  de  representer, 
non  les  idees  ou  les  interets  de  tel  ou  tel  groupe  d'hommes, 
mais  la  seule  justice,  universelle  eteternelle.  Platon,  je  crois, 
eut  applaudi  a  cette  theorie  de  la  representation.  En  lisant 
1'expose  de  M.  Walston,  on  sent,  avec  une  vivacite  singuliere, 
que  Ton  a  affaire  a  un  homme  qui  veut  le  bien,  1'honnete,  le 
solide,  le  vrai,  1'humain  par  excellence  et  qui  ignore  toute 
consideration  £goiste  et  partiale. 

A  un  tel  Conseil,  ajoute-t-il,  il  faut  adjoindre  une  police 
Internationale.  Est-ce  possible,  helas  !  est-ce  meme  con- 
cevable  ?  Mais  ne  doutons  pas  qu'une  cour  permanente  de 
justice  qui  serait  composee  d'hommes  justes  et  competents 
et  qui,  peu  a  peu,  creerait  un  code  de  justice  internationale, 
n'acquit,  par  sa  seule  autorite  morale,  une  influence  reelle  de 
plus  en  plus  puissante. 

II  est  impossible  de  parler  des  rapports  de  la  France  et  de 
l'Angleterre  d'une  maniere  plus  touchante,  plus  sympathique, 
plus  cordiale,  que  ne  fait  ici  M.  Walston.  Que  les  nations 
frangaise  et  anglaise  1'ecoutent  et  s'inspirent  de  son  esprit ; 
et  les  nuages  que  la  politique  des  politiciens  risquerait 
d'amasser  demeureront  sans  consistance,  et  se  dissiperont 
aisement  sous  les  rayons  de  1'amitie  et  de  la  confiance  mutuelle 


428  APPENDIX 

de  1'elite  intellectuelle  et  morale  des  deux  pays.  Puissent  les 
nations  subordonner,  a  la  vie  de  Fame,  qui  les  unit,  celle  du 
corps,  qui  les  divise  ! 

EMILE  BOUTROUX, 
de  V Academic  Francaise. 

L'ANARCHIE  NATIONALE 

Le  danger  qui  menace  1'Europe — et  meme  toute  la  civi- 
lisation occidentale — vient  de  1'anarchie  nationale  et  de 
1'anarchie  Internationale. 

L'e  volution  des  "  classes  " — le  developpement  du  travail 
materiel  et  intellectuel,  comme  celui  des  forces  e*conomiques  et 
morales,  ont  determine  1'etat  de  la  societe  moderne  et  chacune 
de  ces  forces  contribue  au  bien-etre  de  1'ensemble  des  peuples, 
a  la  civilisation,  a  la  culture,  et  au  progres.  L' irrationality, 
1'erreur  fondamentale  du  bolchevisme  (et  du  soi-disant  parti 
du  travail  dans  plusieurs  pays)  se  trouve  dans  cette  these  : 
a  savoir,  que  la  majorite  des  travailleurs  manuels  (le  soi-disant 
proletariat)  doit  gouverner,  sinon  tyranniser,  les  nations  et  le 
monde  entier. 

II  est  meme  douteux  qu'il  en  soit  ainsi  et  qu'une  grande 
proportion  de  travailleurs  manuels  partagent  cette  prevention 
des  extremistes.  Le  processus  6volutionnaire  du  bolchevisme 
est  a  Tin  verse  du  processus  de  1'evolution  naturelle  et  morale. 
Car  on  veut  reduire  revolution  sociale  accomplie  dans  le  passe 
a  1'etat  prehistorique — la  la  civilisation  des  troglodytes — 
ignorant  ce  que  la  qualite  signifie  dans  le  travail,  combien 
1' intelligence  humaine  est  importante — meme  essentielle — 
pour  le  perfectionnement  du  travail  materiel  et  le  progres  de 
la  Societe.  De  plus  en  plus  les  inventions  (qui  avec  nous 
prennent  la  place  des  esclaves  dans  la  democratic  pericleenne) 
remplacent  1'effort  manuel,  le  reduisent  a  un  minimum, 
jusqu'a  ce  qu'il  devienne  une  quantite  negligeable.  Avant 
tout  il  faut  que  les  travailleurs  reconnaissent  et  admettent 
que  skilled  labour,  1'agilite  meme  dans  le  travail  le  plus  materiel, 
implique  comme  elements  differentiels  1'intelligence  et  les 
valeurs  morales  et  esthetiques.  L'anarchie  nationale  est 
basee  sur  cette  antithese  fausse,  illusoire,  et  nefaste  entre  les 
valeurs  materielles  et  les  valeurs  intellectuelles,  et  entre  les 


LA    SOCIETE    DES    NATIONS  429 

groupes  sociaux  qui,  a  premiere  vue,  representent  1'un  ou 
1'autre  de  ces  elements  qui,  loin  d'etre  en  antagonisme,  se 
compenetrent  organiquement  dans  la  vie  normale  de  la 
societe  civilisee. 

A  ces  causes  de  1'anarchie  nationale  il  faut  en  ajouter 
d'autres,  que  nous  trouverons  dans  la  seconde  partie  de  notre 
sujet  a  la  base  de  1'anarchie  internationale,  mais  qui,  par  leur 
intrusion  dans  la  vie  nationale,  augmentent  toutes  les  compli- 
cations et  antagonismes  nefastes  qui  menent  a  1'anarchie. 
Ce  sont  les  differences  de  races,  de  "  nationalites  "  et  de  reli- 
gions, qui,  avec  leurs  interets,  leurs  ambitions  et  meme  leurs 
haines,  perpetuent  le  trouble  dans  la  vie  nationale  interieure 
et  dans  les  rapports  internationaux. 

La  vie  nationale — comprise  dans  le  vrai  sens  du  mot — 
dejk  menacee  par  les  inegalites  materielles,  etait,  dans  le  pass£, 
detournee  de  sa  course  normale  par  les  luttes  latentes  ou 
violentes  entre  des  majorites  et  des  minorites  de  citoyens, 
determine'es  comme  telles  par  leurs  differences  de  races,  de 
"  nationalites  "  et  de  religions.  Enfin  nous  arrivons — quant 
aux  causes  de  1'anarchie  nationale — a  1'opposition  et  a  la 
lutte  des  Etats,  des  vraies  nationalites.  Et  nous  aboutissons 
ainsi  a  1'anarchie  internationale — le  vrai  sujet  de  cet  article — 
mais  qui  reagit  si  puissamment  sur  la  vie  interieure  des  peuples 
—les  deux  domaines  s'entre-penetrant  constamment  et  avec 
intensite. 

L'ANARCHIE  INTERNATIONALE 

La  guerre  mondiale  a  sans  doute  eu  pour  cause  fondamentale 
les  interets  materiels  des  differentes  nations  modernes.  Cela 
a  et<§  demontre  par  les  evenements  et  par  de  nombreuses 
publications  litteraires  et  economiques  d'auteurs  eminents. 
D'un  cote — plus  ou  moins  purement  materiel — ondoitadmettre 
que  le  commerce,  1' Industrie,  1'expansion  et  la  domination 
des  marches  du  monde  ont  ete  un  motif  puissant  dans  cette 
lutte  des  peuples  civilises.  D'un  autre  cote — plus  ou  moins 
ideal — la  cause  generale  et  fondamentale  pour  laquelle  nos 
soldats  donnaient  leur  vie  6tait  la  lutte  de  la  democratic  et 
de  rantimilitarisme  centre  1'autocratie  et  le  militarisme. 
Entre  ces  deux  poles — et  de  plus  la  cause  immediate  de  la 
guerre  localisee  dans  les  Balkans — il  y  avait  la  defense  et  la 


430  APPENDIX 

liberte  des  petites  nationalites  centre  la  tyrannic  et  1'im- 
perialisme  des  grands  Pouvoirs  expansionnistes  et  agressifs. 
Comme  nous  aliens  le  voir,  cette  cause,  admirablement  justi- 
fiee  par  le  sentiment  de  justice  et  de  charite,  a  agi — et  se  mani- 
festera  peut-etre  encore  plus  dans  1'avenir — comme  une  lame 
a  deux  tranchants,  en  accentuant  et  en  compliquant  1'anarchie 
internationale. 

Mais  cette  enumeration  des  causes  fondamentales  de  la 
guerre  serait  incomplete  et  fausse  si  nous  en  restions  la.  La 
vraie  cause,  immediate  et  ulterieure,  se  trouve  dans  notre 
conception  de  la  nationality  et  dans  le  developpement  de 
1'Etat  moderne  base  sur  cette  conception.  Cette  conception 
avec  tout  ce  qu'elle  determine  :  institutions,  administration, 
mentalite,  et  activite  politique  des  citoyens,  a  fatalement  mene 
les  Nations  a  la  lutte  et  au  desir  de  repandre  leur  pouvoir 
materiel  et  moral  a  Tinfini.  Elle  a  cree,  comme  la  vertu 
sociale  par  excellence,  ce  patriotisme  national  qui  produit  et 
qui  intensifie  les  passions  de  1'ambition,  de  1'orgueil,  de  la 
vanite  personnelle  ou  corporative,  de  1'envie  et  de  la  haine. 
C'est  cette  passion — ce  sentiment,  si  vous  voulez — qui  a 
ete  le  ressort  essentiel  et  directeur  de  la  guerre  ;  c'est  lui  qui 
incite  les  masses  a  offrir  leur  vie  en  combattant  1'ennemi.  Le 
poeme  de  Hoffmann  von  Fallersleben  qui  visait,  en  1841,  a 
1'unite  d'une  Allemagne  divisee,  au  temps  du  poete,  en  une 
masse  de  petits  Etats  particularistes,  d'un  idealisme  et  meme 
d'un  romantisme  vague  et  innocent — s'etait  transforme,  en 
1914,  en  un  chant  de  bataille,  non  seulement  des  pan-ger- 
manistes,  mais  du  peuple  entier  :  le  Deutschland  !  Deutsch- 
land  iiber  Alles  in  der  Welt,  la  domination  du  monde  de  son 
commerce  et  de  ses  richesses  par  TEmpire  allemand.  Mais 
ce  phenomene  n'6tait  qu'une  consequence  logique  et  fatale 
de  la  conception  de  la  nationalite. 

La  conception  moderne  de  la  nationalite — conception  non 
pas  exactement  fixee,  mais  contenant,  au  contraire,  des  com- 
plications d'idees  et  des  contradictions  inherentes  a  ses  diverses 
significations — date  du  debut  du  xix*  siecle  quand,  par  Mazzini 
et  les  publicistes  inspires  par  le  Congres  de  Vienne,  1'idee  de 
la  nationalite  est  devenue  directrice  dans  la  conception  de 
1'Etat  et  des  peuples.  Ensuite,  par  la  politique  arretee  de 
Cavour  et  de  Bismarck,  1'Etat  nationaliste  (Nazionalstat),  la 


LA    SOCIETE   DES    NATIONS  431 

"  nationality  "  a  ete"  basee  sur  1'idee  de  la  race  ethnologique. 
Meme  avant  cette  epoque,  1'ideal  du  pan-hellenisme  et  du 
pan-slavisme  etait  ne.  Mais,  inspire  par  1'ideal  de  la  "  Cite 
Antique  "  avec  implication  du  pan-latinisme  sinon  de  pan- 
gallicisme,  et  par  les  historians  d'Angleterre,  comme  Freeman, 
le  pan-anglosaxonisme  germait  dans  la  Grande-Bretagne, 
jusqu'a  ce  que,  plus  tard,  le  pan-slavisme  et  le  pan-germanisme 
se  soient  materialises  dans  1'histoire  moderne  comme  des  idees 
des  plus  fecondes  dans  la  vie  nationale  de  ces  peuples.  Nous 
osons  meme  suggerer  que,  dans  1'avenir,  il  se  developpera  des 
mouvements  pan-americain  et  pan-europeen  aboutissant  a 
un  grand  soulevement  pan-orientaliste. 

C'est  surtout  a  ces  idees  qu'il  faut  ramener  les  causes  de 
1' anarchic  Internationale  qui  a  produit  la  guerre  et  qui  en 
produira  d'autres  dans  1'avenir.  Au  fond,  le  germe  de  cette 
vegetation  destructive  de  la  paix  consiste  dans  1' identification 
de  la  nationality  et  de  la  race.  Cette  erreur  fondamentale  a 
etc  combattue  recemment  par  des  ecrivains  eminents  dans 
chaque  nation  et  meme  par  des  ethnologistes  serieux.  La 
litterature  de  ce  sujet  est  devenue  immense  dans  tous  les  pays. 

Renan,  avec  son  eloquence  claire  et  altiere,  avait  deja 
de*montre  que  "  1'ame  d'une  Nation  "  n'est  pas  une  question 
de  race.  Des  ecrivains  francais 1  ont  aussi  exposS  1' absurdity 
de  la  division  des  nations  par  races.  Proudhon  en  avait  deja 
anticipe  les  consequences  en  montrant  qu'il  y  aurait  en  France 
meme  douze  "  nationalites "  ethnologiques ;  et,  en  1916, 
M.  Flach  (pendant  le  troisieme  Congres  des  nationalites  a 
Lausanne)  a  reclame  la  division  de  la  France  en  nationalites 
regionales  comprenant :  les  Bretons,  les  Corses,  les  Flamands, 
les  Basques,  les  Proven^aux,  les  Savoyards,  etc. 

C'est  par  cette  fausse  conception  des  nationality  que  I'id6e 
du  patriotisme  s'est  pervertie.  Le  patriotisme  est  une  des 
plus  hautes  vertus  de  1'espdce  humaine.  II  doit  rester  et  il 
doit  etre  nourri  et  developpe  dans  tous  les  sens.  Mais  il  faut 
insister  sur  ce  fait  important  et  essentiel  qu'il  doit  etre  mis  en 
harmonic  avec  les  autres  qualites  et  vertus  humaines.  J'ai 
tache  ailleurs  de  demontrer  la  valeur  progressive  de  ces  vertus 

1  Parmi  les  ouvrages  nombreux  sur  ce  sujet,  je  dois  signaler  le  livre 
serieux  et  remarquable  de  M.  Rene  Johannet  public  en  1918. 


432  APPENDIX 

sociales  sur  lesquelles  sont  fond6s  la  civilisation  et  le  progr£s 
du  genre  humain.  Le  patriotisme  occupe  une  des  plus  hautes 
marches  sur  1'echelle  qui  va  de  la  base  voracite  animale  a 
re"goisme  de  la  bete  humaine  et  monte,  dans  une  ascension 
continue,  a  1' amour  de  la  famille,  au  devouement  au  village, 
a  la  ville,  au  departement,  et  jusqu'a  la  passion  d6vouee  au 
patriotisme  national.  Mais  la  cime  de  cette  echelle,  la  clef  de 
voute  de  Tare  humanitaire,  est  le  patriotisme  international. 
Si  tous  ces  degres  ne  menent  pas  vers  ce  but  final,  le  resultat 
est  le  chaos  dans  1'ordre  social,  1'anarchie  dans  les  socie*te*s 
civilisees,  anarchic  qui  mene  a  la  guerre  de  tous  contre  tous. 


LA  LIGUE  DES  NATIONS 

La  guerre  est  terminee  et  nous  avons  la  paix.  Mais,  meme 
dans  cette  paix,  les  forces  destructives  qui  ont  mene  a  la 
guerre  survivent  encore.  La  tradition  de  la  politique  Inter- 
nationale et  surtout  de  la  diplomatic  de  Vancien  ordre  a  sur- 
vecu.  On  n'a  pas  encore  reconnu,  quant  au  but  et  aux 
methodes  mis  en  honneur  par  le  Congr£s,  le  nouvel  ordre  qui 
doit  regner.  Mais  c'est  surtout  par  la  survivance  de  la  con- 
ception de  la  nationalite  ethnologique  que  les  germes  de  desac- 
cord  et  de  guerre  sont  restes  pour  produire  une  vegetation  de 
mauvaises  herbes  qui  etoufferont,  dans  leur  croissance  rapide, 
les  fruits  nourriciers  et  les  fleurs  qui  embellisent  la  vie  des 
societes  civilis6es. 

Le  principe  de  determination  par  elles-memes  des  petites 
nationalites  etait  urgent,  et  c'est  avec  justice  qu'il  a  dirig6  le 
Conseil  des  Allies  au  Congres  de  la  paix.  Mais,  comme  je 
1'ai  deja  indique,  il  en  pourrait  resulter  un  grand  danger  pour 
la  paix  actuelle  et  dans  1'avenir.  Je  ne  peux  que  suggerer  a 
mes  lecteurs  ce  qu'il  advient  et  doit  advenir  dans  la  constitu- 
tion des  Etats  ethniques  du  pre-Orient,  surtout  dans  les 
Balkans,  en  Russie,  en  Asie-Mineure  ou  ces  peuples,  avec  les 
antagonismes  de  races  et  de  religions,  sont  effectivement 
voisins  les  uns  des  autres. 

Et  me  tournant  vers  1'ouest  lointain,  j'ose  indiquer  ce 
qui  resulterait  quant  a  la  nationalite  des  £tats-Unis,  si  le 
principe  de  determination  par  soi-meme  des  elements  de 
races  ou  d'origines  nationales,  combing  avec  la  diversite"  des 


LA    SOCIETE   DES    NATIONS  433 

confessions  religieuses,  se  manifestait  dans  la  vie  politique 
de  cette  nation.  J'ose  meme  affirmer  que  le  plus  grand  danger 
actuel  dans  la  vie  politique  de  ce  "  melting-pot  "  national — qui 
existe  essentiellement  par  I'attachement  patriotique  de  tous 
les  citoyens  a  1'unite  basee  sur  la  Constitution,  les  lois,  la 
moralite,  les  coutumes,  les  ideals — se  trouve  dans  les  divisions 
et  les  heurts  des  elements  ethniques  dont  la  nation  est  com- 
posee  !  Meme  actuellement  (comme  peut-etre  dans  la  pre- 
miere annee  de  la  guerre),  la  question  des  votes  determines 
par  la  race,  les  religions,  et  les  origines  des  citoyens,  a  joue  un 
role  considerable.  Si  cela  persiste  et  s'intensifie,  la  politique 
interieure  et  surtout  la  politique  exterieure  de  cette  grande 
nation  s'en  ressentiront  dans  les  conditions  les  plus  n£fastes 
pour  1'Amerique  et  pour  le  monde  entier. 

Je  tiens  a  affirmer  sans  reserve  aucune  que  je  reconnais 
pleinement  le  travail  immense  et  superbe  qui  a  ete  fait  par 
ceux  qui  constituaient  la  Conference  de  la  Paix.  L'Histoire 
saura  leur  rendre  justice.  Quelles  que  soient  les  consequences 
de  leur  action  dans  tous  les  domaines,  il  en  resulte  au  moins 
un  fait  de  la  plus  haute  valeur  permanente :  c'est  que  les 
idees  dominatrices  de  1'ordre  nouveau  ont  ete  formulees  et 
poussees  de  la  sphere  nebuleuse  et  altiere  des  theories  dans  la 
realite  de  la  vie  politique  internationale  et  dans  la  conscience 
des  peuples. 

La  Conference  de  la  Paix  a  bien  pressenti  que  le  danger 
central  qui  menace  la  paix  etait  1'anarchie  internationale. 
On  a  done  reconnu  que  la  Ligue  des  Nations  est  la  clef  de  voute 
de  la  paix. 

En  admettant  en  toute  sincerite  ce  resultat  grandiose,  je 
n'hesite  pas  a  declarer  que,  dans  la  forme  actuelle  et  dans 
1'organisation  de  cette  Ligue  des  Nations,  la  survivance  des 
traditions  de  1'ancien  ordre  a  affaibli — sinon  detruit — 1'effi- 
cacite  pratique  de  cette  base  du  traite  de  paix  entier.  Mais 
meme  dans  cette  critique  negative,  j'admets  que  1'activite 
mandataire  accordee  a  la  Ligue  est  une  idee  de  genie  dont  la 
portee  est  immense,  non  seulement  pour  le  present  mais  pour 
1'avenir  du  monde  entier. 

Ce  qui  est  certain  aujourd'hui,  c'est  que  deja  la  Ligue  des 
Nations  a  perdu  sa  place  dans  la  conscience  des  peuples  et  des 
classes  et  a  subi  1'opposition  active  d'un  des  membres  les  plus 

29 


434  APPENDIX 

importants  parmi  les  Allies,  du  Senat  des  Etats-Unis.  Je 
trouve  partout,  dans  chaque  classe  du  peuple,  non  seulement 
parmi  ceux  qui,  par  leur  mentalite  et  par  tradition,  ont  tou- 
jours  ete  opposes  a  des  idees  pareilles,  mais  aussi  parmi  ceux 
qui  ont  ete  et  qui  sont  convaincus  et  enthousiasmes  pour  la 
fondation  d'une  organisation  international  capable  d'assurer 
la  paix,  des  personnes  qui  ont  perdu  la  foi  dans  1'efficacite 
reelle  et  pratique  de  la  Ligue  des  Nations  et  qui  en  parlent 
avec  un  scepticisme  dans  lequel  on  aper£oit  un  element  de 
mepris  bienveillant. 

Apres  avoir  ose  faire  cette  critique  negative,  j'aurai  meme 
la  temerite  de  publier,  en  esquisse,  une  proposition  positive 
et  constructive  qui,  necessairement,  doit  se  borner  a  une 
exposition  des  plus  sommaires  des  points  essentiels  d'une 
Ligue  de  Nations  ou,  pour  etre  plus  exact,  d'un  accord  inter- 
national qui  doit  effectuer  et  sauvegarder  la  paix. 

Mais,  j'ose  aussi  affirmer  que  chacun  de  ces  points  pourrait 
etre  developpe  de  maniere  a  satisfaire  les  exigences  de  la  vie 
Internationale  actuelle  et  a  rendre  leur  realisation  pratique 
et  efficace. 

Dans  tous  les  cas,  le  plan  que  je  propose  echappe  a  toutes 
les  objections  promulguees  par  le  Senat  des  Etats-Unis  centre 
le  traite  entier,  et  la  Ligue  des  Nations  en  particulier.  Ces 
objections  n'auraient  jamais  ete  faites  centre  une  ligue  telle 
que  je  la  con£ois,  car  les  deux  objections  principales  ne  tien- 
nent  pas  contre  elle.  L'une  porte  sur  1'incursion  dans  la 
Souverainete  de  1'Etat,  dans  le  cas  ou  la  Ligue  fait  appel  a 
un  de  ses  membres  pour  declarer  la  guerre  et  mobiliser  son 
armee  contre  une  nation  recalcitrante — ce  qui  est,  non  seule- 
ment une  contravention  a  la  Constitution  des  Etats-Unis, 
quant  au  droit  de  declarer  la  guerre,  mais  aussi  ce  qui  est  peu 
realisable  quant  au  peuple  entier  qui  const itue  chaque  arm6e 
nationale  et  dont  on  attendra  1'obeissance  a  1'ordre,  venu  du 
dehors,  de  donner  sa  vie  pour  une  cause  qui  ne  concerne  pas 
directement  sa  propre  existence.  L'autre  objection  concerne 
la  representation  insuffisante  des  Etats-Unis,  representation 
qui  n'est  pas  en  rapport  avec  la  grandeur  et  I'importance  de 
cet  Etat. 

Mais,  avant  tout,  il  faut  insister  sur  ce  fait  que  tous  les 


LA    SOCIETE   DES    NATIONS  435 

critiques,  les  sceptiques,  et  meme  les  ennemis  directs  de  la 
Ligue  des  Nations  telle  qu'elle  existe,  sont  d'accord  sur  un 
point :  la  necessite  immediate  et  absolue  de  trouver  un  moyen 
quelconque  pour  eviter  une  guerre  dans  1'avenir.  On  n'a  qu'a 
demander,  non  seulement  aux  gens  cultives,  aux  penseurs  et 
aux  philosophes,  mais  a  "  I'homme  de  la  rue  "  completement 
illettre,  ce  qu'il  adviendrait  au  monde  s'il  survenait,  dans 
1'avenir,  une  seconde  guerre  comme  la  derniere,  avec  tout  le 
progres  dans  les  machines  destructives  de  la  vie  humaine,  que 
la  science  et  1'experience  de  cette  guerre  ont  fourni  ?  De 
plus,  est-il  concevable  que  les  nations  europeennes — qui,  si 
elles  ne  sont  pas  en  banqueroute  economique  actuelle,  sont 
dans  un  etat  voisin  de  la  banqueroute  prochaine — puissent 
supporter  les  charges  de  nouvelles  batailles  ?  Si,  avant  cette 
guerre,  les  differentes  nations  ont  deja  gemi  sous  le  poids  in- 
supportable des  armements  de  defense  nationale  qui  les 
menaient  a  la  faillite,  comment  trouver  a  present  et  dans 
1'avenir  les  moyens  de  preservation  economique  de  nos  peuples  ? 
Avec  le  danger  devant  nos  portes,  et  surtout  devant  celles 
de  la  France,  le  maintien  et  meme  1'extension  de  nos  forces 
militaires  ne  peuvent  que  s'accroitre. 

Voila  un  etat  de  choses  impossible.  D'autre  part,  la  tendance 
de  notre  economic  et  de  nos  industries  modernes  va  directe- 
ment  et  forcement  dans  le  sens  de  la  cooperation.  II  faut 
done  que  nous  trouvions  un  moyen  de  cr£er  une  force  coopera- 
tive— trusts,  pool,  syndicats — surtout  quant  aux  depenses 
de  la  production  pour  faire  face  au  danger  commun  qui  menace 
toutes  les  nations  et  tous  les  peuples.  Mais  comment  ?  Le 
seul  moyen  est  de  transformer  la  Ligue  des  Nations  en  un  corps 
completement  organise  qui  puisse  repondre  de  la  protection 
indispensable  a  chaque  pays. 

POUR  UN  JURY  SUPRA-NATIONAL 
Voici    1'esquisse    d'une    telle    organisation.1      L'element 

1  On  me  ferait  tort  si  Ton  croyait  que  le  projet  que  je  donne  en 
ebauche  superficielle  est  le  resultat  d'une  pensee  ou  d'une  imagination 
trop  vive,  nee  d'aujourd'hui  ou  d'hier.  Je  dois  a  moi-mfeme  d'informer 
mes  lecteurs  que  ce  projet  a  et£  con9u  il  y  a  plus  de  45  ans ;  que  la 
premiere  publication  des  principes  essentiels  a  et6  faite  en  1898  et  que, 
depuis  lors,  elle  a  ete  repetee  sous  differentes  formes,  dans  des  publi- 
cations pendant  la  guerre. 


436  APPENDIX 

necessaire,  absolument  essentiel,  dans  une  organisation 
nationale  qui  reponde  aux  besoins  que  nous  admettons,  est 
que  le  Conseil  ou  la  Cour  ou  le  Jury  International,  soit  muni 
d'une  force  militaire,  d'une  police  qui  exige  la  realisation  de 
ses  decisions  de  justice  internationale.  Le  second  point 
essentiel  est  que  cet  accord  international  ne  compromette 
nullement  la  souverainete  et  1'independance  interieures  des 
nations  qui  forment  1'organisation  internationale.  II  faut 
rompre  avec  1'ordre  ancien  et  reconnaitre  le  nouvel  ordre. 
Les  traditions  et  les  methodes  diplomatiques,  avec  la  mentality 
des  diplomates  et  meme  des  hommes  d'Etat  qui  ont  dirige 
1'action  internationale  jusqu'ici,  doivent  faire  place  a  une 
nouvelle  conduite  des  affaires  et  des  interets  nationaux  et 
internationaux  qui  ne  visent  que  la  justice  et,  par  consequent, 
la  paix  entre  les  Nations.  Le  Corps  directeur  ne  doit  nulle- 
ment etre  constitue  par  les  representants  des  differentes 
nations  munis  de  mandats  pour  garder  les  interets  des  diffe- 
rents  Gouvernements  ou  des  differentes  Nations. 

Les  membres  de  ce  Corps  n'auront  point  de  mandat  national, 
ce  ne  sera  pas  un  Conseil  des  Nations,  pas  meme  un  Corps 
legislatif  international,  le  Grand  Parlement  du  Monde ;  mais 
tout  simplement  une  Cour  de  justice,  pas  meme  une  Cour  de 
juristes  avec  des  magistrats  judiciaires,  mais  un  grand  Jury 
International  qui  accorde  1'equite  la  plus  parfaite  dans  ce 
monde  imparfait,  dans  toutes  ses  deliberations.  II  est  proba- 
ble qu'il  sera  necessaire  que  ce  grand  nombre  de  representants 
agissent  sous  la  presidence  d'un  juge  et  d'un  juriste  de  metier, 
maitre  de  la  procedure  legale.  Mais  les  membres  de  ce  grand 
jury  seront  tout  simplement  des  hommes  eminents  et  du 
caractere  le  plus  eleve,  envoyes  par  chaque  nation  et  dignes 
de  sauvegarder  la  justice  la  plus  pure.  Ce  sont  les  plaideurs 
des  deux  parties  qui  dans  un  litige  peuvent  ou  doivent  etre 
des  juristes  de  profession. 

Le  seul  mandat  de  ces  membres  du  Jury  sera  la  justice. 
Apres  un  serment  des  plus  solennels,  chacun  devra  se  vouer, 
sa  designation  faite,  a  la  seule  realisation  de  la  justice  pure, 
sans  partialite  individuelle,  locale  et  nationale,  comme  un  juge 
dans  chaque  pays,  et  comme  les  membres  du  jury  dans  nos 
tribunaux  pretent  serment  de  n'etre  diriges  que  par  la  justice. 
La  nature  humaine  a  produit,  dans  1' administration  de  la 


LA   SOCIETE   DES   NATIONS  437 

justice  actuelle,  des  injustices  et  des  infractions  au  devoir, 
exceptionnelles.  Mais  nous  pouvons  affirmer  que  ce  ne  sont 
la  que  des  exceptions  dans  nos  Cours  de  Justice,  et  que  dans 
un  Corps  de  centaines  d'hommes  d' intelligence  et  de  moralite 
superieures,  il  n'y  aura  que  peu  de  cas  de  ces  delits  centre  la 
justice  et  la  verite. 

Ces  representants  nationaux  seront  elus  dans  chaque  nation 
en  proportion  du  nombre  d'habitants  avec  le  minimum  d'un 
representant  pour  les  petites  nations. 

Une  des  objections  capitales  du  Sen  at  americain  est  deja 
annulee  par  cette  methode,  et  la  disproportion  dans  la  repre- 
sentation des  grandes  Puissances  et  des  petites  Nations  qui 
cause  et  qui  causera  le  mecontentement  continuel,  sera 
effacee.  Mais  il  faut  insister  avec  la  plus  grande  force  sur 
ce  point  que  les  difficultes  negatives  du  fonctionnement  de 
cette  organisation  Internationale  seront  toutes  resolues  et 
que  son  emcacite"  sera  assuree  par  le  fait  essentiel  que  les  repre- 
sentants, dans  leur  caracteie  et  leur  activite  officiels,  n'appar- 
tiendront  a  aucune  nationalite  et  ne  seront  effectivement  que 
les  serviteurs  du  Corps  international  dans  sa  solidarite. 

De  plus,  il  est  essentiel  a  cette  conception  d'un  Jury  Supra- 
National,  qu'il  ne  s'occupera  que  de  questions,  de  problemes 
et  de  litiges  internationaux.  II  ne  s'introduira  nullement 
dans  les  affaires  nationales  sauf  dans  le  cas  ou  les  deux  parties 
litigeantes  d'une  Nation  et  la  Nation  elle-meme  invoqueront 
sa  juridiction.  Cependant,  sur  deux  points  exceptionnels  son 
intervention  dans  la  vie  nationale  est  absolument  necessaire 
a  la  r£ussite  de  ses  fonctions  et  a  la  realisation  de  la  justice  : 
le  premier  est  le  controle  des  armements  dans  chaque  Nation 
qui  a  accepte  le  principe  du  desarmement  afin  d'eviter,  par 
tous  les  moyens  effectifs,  les  armements  et  les  mobilisations 
secrets.  L'autre  concerne  la  sauvegarde  de  la  verite,  c'est- 
a-dire  la  rectification  immediate  et  complete  du  mensonge, 
de  rerreur,  et  de  1' ignorance.  II  faut  done  fournir  a  ce  Corps 
le  pouvoir  pratique  et  efficace  de  repandre  dans  tous  les  pays, 
et  parmi  toutes  les  populations,  la  negation  ou  la  rectification 
de  toute  publication  mensongere  ou  erronee  en  ce  qui  concerne 
les  relations  internationales  ;  et,  de  plus,  il  faut  insister  sur 
un  systeme  de  publications  completes  et  etendues  de  tous  les 
jugements  et  decrets  de  ce  Jury  Supra-National. 


438  APPENDIX 

Hormis  ces  deux  limitations,  il  ne  sera  permis  nulle  infraction 
a  la  souverainete  de  chaque  Nation.  II  n'y  aura  qu'un  sou- 
verain  auquel  tous  les  Etats  devront  se  subordonner :  la 
Justice. 

Mais  il  faut  bien  se  rappeler  que  cette  limitation  a  la  souve- 
rainete existe  ^actuellement  et  a  toujours  existe.  La  Cour 
Supreme  des  Etats-Unis  est  reconnue  par  la  Constitution  et 
par  la  tradition  parlementaire  comme  le  tribunal  de  derniere 
instance  dans  Interpretation  de  la  Constitution  des  droits 
et  des  devoirs  de  chacun  des  Etats  de  1' Union  ;  et,  dans  le 
passe,  dans  le  Moyen-Age  le  plus  autocrate,  la  souverainete 
absolue  a  toujours  et6  conc^ie  en  tant  que  limitee  par  "  les 
Commandements  de  Dieu  et  les  Lois  de  la  Nature."  L1  inter- 
pretation des  Commandements  de  Dieu  avec  ses  dogmes  est 
differente  parmi  les  sectes  religieuses ;  mais  toutes  ces 
sectes  reconnaitront  comme  seule  valable  la  justice  qui 
vient  de  Dieu.  "  Les  Lois  de  la  Nature  "  (nous  en  sommes 
bien  conscients)  peuvent  mener  a  la  maxime  historique  de 
Bethmann  Hollweg :  "La  necessite  ne  connait  pas  de  loi." 
Mais  rhumanite  entiere  reconnait  dans  la  politique,  comme 
dans  la  morale,  que  la  justice  doit  etre  superieure  aux  cruautes 
et  aux  injustices  de  la  nature. 

L'ARMEE  SUPRA-NATIONALE 

Mais  les  discussions  et  les  decisions  de  ce  Jury  Supra- 
National  seront  illusoires  sans  1'appui  de  la  force  dirigee  par 
cette  justice,  comme  dans  notre  vie  nationale,  la  decision  des 
tribunaux  n'aurait  pas  de  valeur  si  elle  n'etait  appuyee  par 
la  force  de  la  police. 

Le  point  essentiel  d'une  Ligue  des  Nations  effective  c'est 
qu'elle  associe  avec  elle  une  police  internationale  capable 
d'assurer  la  realisation  complete  et  immediate  de  ses  decisions. 

Dans  le  sens  negatif,  cette  police  ne  doit  pas  etre  une 
agglomeration  ou  une  federation  de  differentes  armees  natio- 
nales.  D'une  part,  la  libre  disposition  d'un  armement  national 
par  une  autorite  etrangere  a  la  Nation  est  une  infraction  in- 
supportable a  la  souverainete  des  Nations. 

Mais,  de  plus,  il  n'est  pas  concevable  que  les  armees  elles- 
memes  et  leurs  soldats  reprendront  la  guerre,  et  tout  ce  que 
cela  signifie,  pour  une  question  qui  ne  concerne  pas  directe- 


LA   SOCIETE   DES   NATIONS  439 

ment  1'existence  nationale.  II  me  parait  de  plus  invrai- 
semblable  et  illusoire  de  compter  sur  une  armee  Internationale 
composee  de  differents  Corps  d'armees  et  d'unites  gardant  leur 
solidarite  nationale,  mais  incapables  de  s'amalgamer  et  de 
former  une  armee  entiere.  II  est  plus  qu'improbable,  par 
exemple,  qu'une  de  ces  unites  puisse  faire  loyalement  la  guerre 
contre  ses  propres  nationaux.  Dans  le  sens  positif  un  instru- 
ment militaire  efficace  de  police  internationale  doit  resulter 
d'une  force  militaire  (navale  et  aerienne),  composee  de 
militaires  de  chaque  Nation,  militaires  de  profession  et  de 
choix.  II  est  beaucoup  d'hommes  qui,  par  temperament 
et  par  gout,  choisiront  cette  profession  d'armes  et  qui  dans 
leur  ensemble  composeront  une  arm6e  perfectionn6e  au 
dernier  point,  qui  se  battra  loyalement  et  avec  fierte  pour  la 
plus  grande  cause  dans  la  vie  humaine  :  la  Justice.  II  faut 
se  rappeler  que  les  armees  mercenaires  du  Moyen-Age  et  des 
temps  modernes  meme  contenaient  de  ces  soldats  de  pro- 
fession qui  sacrifiaient  leur  vie  pour  des  causes  bien  douteuses, 
comme  pour  des  individus  et  des  autocrates  qui  ne  repre- 
sentaient  pas  toujours  les  ideals  de  1'humanite. 

Comme  la  justice  internationale  aura  son  habitat,  son 
domicile  actuel,  il  y  sera  necessairement  adjoint  les  camps 
necessaires  pour  cette  armee  avec  sa  marine  et  son  centre 
aeronautique — preferablement  dans  une  ile  neutre.  Mais  il 
y  aura  aussi  des  succursales  distributes  dans  chaque  partie 
du  monde  et  reliees  par  la  telegraphic  sans  fil,  de  sorte  que, 
de  ces  centres  de  police,  chaque  infraction  a  1'autorite  du  jury 
sera  reprimee  sans  delai.  Comme  les  membres  du  jury 
Supra-National,  et  a  plus  forte  raison,  les  soldats  de  cette 
armee  policiere  feront  abstraction  de  leur  nationality  dans  leur 
existence  officielle  et  ne  preteront  serment  de  loyaute  qu'a  ce 
Corps  Supra-National. 

LE  DEVOUEMENT  DE  L'ANGLETERRE 

Une  condition  essentielle  pour  la  realisation  d'une  telle 
police  effective  est  le  desarmement  relatif  de  toutes  les  armies 
nationales,  qui  devra  etre  maintenu  strictement  par  tous  les 
moyens  materiels.  Je  n'ai  pas  besoin  de  developper  plus  en 
detail  1'organisation  de  ce  Corps  ni  son  efficacite,  mais  je 
voudrais,  en  passant,  appuyer  seulement  sur  un  point :  c'est 


440  APPENDIX 

que  la  syndicalisation  des  armees  qui  assureront  1'integrite  de 
chaque  Nation  et  garderont  la  paix  du  monde,  reduira  a  une 
quantite  negligeable  les  sacrifices  economiques  pour  la  defense 
de  chaque  nation,  et  evitera  la  banqueroute  economique  qui 
nous  menace  et  qui  est,  en  fait,  imminente. 

Le  probleme  le  plus  difficile  est  de  resoudre  toutes  les  difn- 
cultes  presque  insurmontables,  au  point  de  vue  economique 
et  moral,  de  la  periode  intermediate  entre  notre  temps  actuel 
et  le  desarmement  des  Nations  et  1'organisation  reelle  d'un 
tel  Corps  international.  Mais  les  peuples  s'en  tireront.  Un 
fait  important  et  indiscutable,  c'est  que  jusqu'au  moment  ou 
sera  e"  tablie  une  telle  force — qui  est  le  seul  moyen  d'eviter  la 
banqueroute  economique  et  la  dissolution  sociale  de  la  civilisa- 
tion entiere — chacun  de  nous,  dans  les  circonstances  actuelles, 
doit  garder  et  meme  developper  ses  moyens  de  defense  natio- 
nale.  La  France,  quant  a  la  terre,  la  Grande-Bretagne,  quant 
a  la  mer,  avec  1'appui  moral  et  materiel  des  Etats-Unis,  de 
1' Italic  et  de  tous  nos  Allies,  doivent  etre  pretes  a  resister  a 
chaque  agression  de  nos  ennemis,  soit  qu'il  s'agisse  de  la  guerre 
ou  des  points  essentiels  du  Traite  de  Paix. 

Devant  nous  se  presentent  des  problemes  presque  insolubles 
au  point  de  vue  economique.  Pour  nous  tous  il  est  indiscu- 
table que  la  France  doit  etre  assuree  des  moyens  de  relever  sa 
vie  economique.  Elle  le  doit  a  elle-meme,  nous  tous  nous  le 
lui  devons.  J'ai  la  conviction  que  tous  les  Allies  et  que  surtout 
la  Grande-Bretagne  y  contribueront  par  des  gestes  de  justice 
et  de  generosite,  comme  j'ai  la  conviction  absolue  que,  avec 
ou  sans  conventions  formelles,  les  peuples  de  la  Grande- 
Bretagne  et  des  Etats-Unis  se  mettront  cote  a  cote  avec  la 
France  pour  re  primer  toute  agression  du  dehors. 

Mais  il  y  a  aussi  le  probleme  moral.  La  haine  est  une  force 
negative  et  bien  douteuse  pour  mener  a  des  actions  raisonnables 
et  a  la  justice.  C'est  par  des  forces  positives  morales  que  la 
justice  se  realise  et  que  les  actions  se  concentrent  pour  atteindre 
ce  but  immediat  et  final. 

Notre  entente  doit  etre  affermie  de  jour  en  jour  par  la 
concorde  vraie,  1'intimite  et  la  connaissance  mutuelle.  Nous 
avons  toujours  autour  de  nous  et  meme  chez  nous  des  gens 
qui  ont  interet  a  nous  separer,  a  repandre  le  mensonge,  a 
insinuer  des  malentendus,  a  semer  la  discorde  et  a  engendrer 


LA   SOCIETE   DES   NATIONS  441 

la  haine.  II  n'y  a  qu'un  moyen  pour  combattre  ces  forces 
ennemies  :  c'est  de  se  connaltre.  Tout  comprendre,  c'est 
tout  pardonner  :  voila  une  belle  maxime  que  j  'hesite  presque 
a  repeter.  Mais  bien  se  connaitre,  pouvoir  penetrer  dans  la 
vie  des  autres,  cultiver  1'imagination  altruistique,  de  sorte  que 
nous  comprenions  les  qualites,  les  motifs  avec  la  justification 
de  chacun,  ouvrir  son  cceur  pour  qu'on  puisse  s'estimer  et 
meme  s'aimer  :  cela  ne  rend  pas  necessaire  le  pardon,  puisque 
cela  permet  de  devancer  chaque  mecontentement,  chaque 
indignation,  chaque  haine. 

Mais  pour  que  cela  se  realise,  il  faut  que  nous  developpions 
dans  notre  vie  commune  les  conditions  qui  menent  a  cette 
vraie  entente,  a  cette  connaissance  mutuelle,  et  surtout,  il  faut 
combattre  en  chacun  de  nous  1' ignorance,  I'erreur  et  le 
mensonge. 

Le  peuple  fran^ais  doit  savoir  que  les  habitants  de  la  Grande- 
Bretagne  surtout  sont  bien  conscients  des  sacrifices  qu'a  faits 
la  France  dans  cette  guerre.  II  est  inutile  de  comparer  et  de 
peser  les  sacrifices  que  chacun  de  nous  a  consentis.  Henri 
Heine  a  bien  dit :  "  Qui  peut  peser  les  flammes  ?  "  Mais 
nous  admettons  tous  que  la  France  est  le  protagoniste  quant 
aux  sacrifices  de  sang  et  de  biens  materiels  dans  cette  guerre. 
Nous  devons  etre  prets  a  reconnaitre  ce  fait  dans  nos  actions. 

D'autre  part,  au  cours  de  mon  sejour  depuis  1'automne, 
dans  differentes  parties  de  la  France  et  parmi  les  diffe*rentes 
classes  de  ses  habitants,  je  me  suis  apergu  que  le  peuple  entier 
n'etait  vraiment  pas  conscient  de  ce  qu'a  fait  1'Angleterre,  des 
sacrifices  que  nous  avons  acceptes  et  que  nous  acceptons 
encore,  loin  de  la  guerre,  surtout  dans  notre  vie  economique. 
Pour  donner  comme  exemples  quelques  faits  simples,  qui 
peuvent  paraitre  meme  mesquins,  je  n'en  veux  citer  que  deux. 
Le  peuple  franc.ais  tout  entier  ne  sait  pas  jusqu'a  quel  point, 
pendant  la  guerre  et  actuellement,  le  peuple  britannique  de 
chaque  classe  s'est  impose  loyalement  des  sacrifices,  non  seule- 
ment  dans  son  confort,  mais  meme  dans  le  necessaire.  Je  ne 
veux  parler  que  des  faits  que  je  connais  absolument. 

Pendant  la  guerre,  les  vivres  etaient  restreints  au  minimum, 
meme  pour  les  gens  les  plus  riches  et  surtout  pour  les  gens  qui 
autrefois  vivaient  dans  1'opulence.  Je  peux  temoigner  avec 


442  APPENDIX 

exactitude  que,  dans  presque  toutes  les  families  qui  possedaient 
des  maisons  dans  la  ville  et  des  chateaux  dans  la  campagne, 
on  ne  mangeait  de  la  viande  que  trois  jours  sur  quinze,  tandis 
qu'on  en  donnait  davantage  aux  domestiques  et  aux  ouvriers. 

J'ose  citer  un  fait  personnel :  dans  1'hiver  de  1917  ou  1918, 
je  donnais  des  conferences  a  des  aveugles  et  a  des  vieillards 
des  deux  sexes  dans  le  plus  pauvre  district  de  Test  de  Londres. 
La  societe  qui  m'avait  invit6  m'offrit  un  th6  apr£s  ma  confe- 
rence. J'etais  surpris  et  ravi  de  voir  des  sandwiches  avec  du 
rosbif  en  quantite  telle  que  je  ne  m'etais  jamais  trouve  a 
pareille  fete  pendant  la  guerre.  Je  demandai  aux  notes 
comment  ils  avaient  pu  faire  de  pareils  sacrifices  pour  me 
plaire  et  comment  ils  avaient  pu  se  procurer  une  telle  quantite 
de  viande.  Ils  me  repondirent  qu'ils  en  avaient  toujours 
autant  et  que  la  viande  qu'ils  achetaient  actuellement  etait 
meme  meilleure  qu'avant  la  guerre  et  presque  aussi  bonne  que 
celle  qu'on  donnait  aux  soldats. 

Mais,  a  1'ouest  de  Londres,  ou  sont  les  maisons  61egantes,  non 
seulement  la  quantite  etait  restreinte  au  minimum,  mais  on 
n'a  jamais  pu  se  procurer  une  bonne  qualite  de  viande. 

II  en  etait  ainsi  de  tous  les  aliments.  Est-ce  que  le  peuple 
fran£ais  sait  qu'une  grande  partie  de  la  population,  surtout 
parmi  les  riches,  n'a  pu  se  procurer  le  charbon  suffisant  pour 
le  chauffage  et  la  cuisine  ?  Je  connais  bien  des  maisons, 
surtout  de  grandes  maisons,  ou  il  etait  absolument  impossible 
de  vivre  a  cause  du  manque  de  chaleur.  Beaucoup  d' Anglais 
ont  ete  obliges  de  se  refugier  dans  le  Midi  de  la  France. 

Est-ce  qu'on  sait  que  la  taxe  sur  tout  revenu  qui  depassait 
un  minimum  etait  et  est  encore  d'un  tiers  pour  les  revenus 
modestes  et  arrive,  avec  la  surtaxe,  a  la  moitie  pour  les  gros 
capitaux  ?  II  y  a  meme  des  cas,  except ionnels,  il  est  vrai, 
ou  la  taxe  depasse  tout  le  revenu  annuel.  De  plus,  il  faut  bien 
qu'on  sache  que  ces  taxes  sont  actuellement  exigees  et  payees 
au  Tresor  National  par  tout  le  monde.  Est-ce  que  le  peuple 
frangais  tout  entier  sait  qu'une  grande  partie  de  nos  vivres  et 
de  nos  matieres  premieres  provient  de  I'Amerique  ?  Que  la 
livre  sterling  qui,  avant  la  guerre,  valait  presque  5  dollars, 
avait  baisse  recemment  jusqu'a  3  dollars  et  demi  environ  ? 

Si  ces  faits  simples  etaient  connus  par  tous  les  Frangais,  il 
n'y  aurait  nullement  danger  que  notre  entente  cordiale  se 


LA   SOCIETE   DES    NATIONS  443 

refroidisse.  II  est  essentiel  que  la  verite  soit  connue  et  qu'elle 
se  repande  partout.  II  faut  instituer  une  organisation  qui 
facilite  et  qui  fortifie  notre  entente,  qui  la  repande  de  tous 
cotes,  meme  dans  la  jeunesse,  jusqu'a  ce  qu'enfin  la  France  et 
la  Grande-Bretagne,  avec  le  concours  de  toutes  les  Nations 
civilisees,  aient  constitue  ce  Corps  Supra-National  qui  assurera 
definitivement  la  solidarite  de  chaque  nation  dans  la  paix  du 
monde  et  jusqu'a  ce  que  la  justice  siege  sur  le  trone  supreme 
couronnee  par  la  charite. 


IV 
AMERICA  AND  THE  LEAGUE  OF  NATIONS1 

THE  world-crisis  immediately  before  us  is  as  ominous  as  the 
one  we  faced  in  1914.  The  pregnant,  and  now  classic  phrase, 
"  A  war  to  end  war  "  (was  it  first  used  by  President  Hadley 
of  Yale  ?),  must  now  be  superseded  by  the  watchword  of  our 
day,  "  A  peace  to  end  war."  The  Great  War  was  determined, 
potentially  from  its  beginning  and  actually  in  1917,  by  the 
entrance  of  the  United  States  into  the  conflict.  Had  the 
United  States  joined  the  Allies  after  the  sinking  of  the 
Lusitania,  the  world  would  have  been  spared  the  stupendous 
destruction  of  life,  property  and  moral  values  during  years  of 
unprecedented  suffering. 

The  battle-cry  of  the  United  States  in  1917,  "  War  to  end 
war,"  in  no  way  implied  the  principles  or  practice  of  what  has 
since  been  technically  and  specifically  called  Pacifism,  though 
the  aim  and  end  of  sacrifice  and  struggle  was  Peace.  For  it 
was  clearly  realised  by  those  who  thus  fought,  that  to  refuse 
to  fight  was  to  provide  the  militaristic  and  autocratic  enemy 
with  the  most  effective  arm  against  the  unmilitaristic  and 
democratic  Allies.  In  the  same  spirit  the  watchword  of  the 
present,  "  Peace  to  end  war,"  does  not  mean  Pacifism.  For 
it  is  clearly  realised  that  premature  and  unguaranteed  dis- 
armament of  all  the  peace-loving  and  highly  civilised  demo- 
cratic nations  would  give  all  the  more  power  to  the  ill-disposed 
or  less-civilised  nations  who  would  continually,  though 
secretly,  prepare  for  war. 

As  in  1915  and  in  1917,  the  great  world-issue  now  depends 

upon  the  action  of  the  United  States.     If  the  American  people 

turn  their  backs  upon  their  brethren  and  their  blood-relations 

of  the  Old  World  and  say  to  themselves  :    "  What  concern  is 

their  life  and  prosperity  to  us  ?     What  have  we  in  common 

with  their  civilisation  and  their  ideals  ?  "  the  evils  in  store  for 

1  Reprinted  from  the  Fortnightly  Review,  March,  1921. 

444 


AMERICA   AND   LEAGUE   OF   NATIONS      445 

civilised  mankind  will  perhaps  even  be  greater  than  they  were 
at  any  period  during  the  war.  The  writer  of  that  remarkable 
article  in  a  recent  number  of  the  Metropolitan  Magazine  of 
New  York  (reproduced  in  the  London  Times  of  February  5) 
has  fully  realised  the  issues  that  lie  before  us.  The  world  has 
to  choose  between  two  alternatives,  and  only  two  :  Continued 
and  intensive  armament,  or  an  effective  League  of  Nations. 

The  first  will  mean  for  the  United  States,  as  well  as  for  the 
British  Empire,  not  only  universal  military  service  (preferably 
on  the  Swiss  plan  as  advocated  by  President  Roosevelt),  but 
increase  of  naval  armament  with  all  the  resultant  complica- 
tions and  dangers  outlined  by  the  writer  referred  to  above. 
Furthermore,  it  will  mean  the  concentration  of  effort  on  the 
part  of  science  to  develop  the  means  of  mass-destruction, 
with  the  widest  range  in  extension  and  the  most  concentrated 
power  of  intensity  in  killing  and  destroying — killing  not 
merely  combatants,  but  (by  the  precedent  established  during 
the  last  war)  non-combatants  as  well.  Even  the  dullest 
imagination  does  not  require  further  stimulation  to  realise 
what  this  will  mean.  In  addition  to  this,  we  know  that 
nearly  all  civilised  States  are  practically  bankrupt,  and, 
according  to  pre-war  standards,  are  completely  so.  What 
will  it  be  if  billions  have  to  be  raised  for  the  armaments  which 
every  nation,  urged  by  self-preservation  and  alive  to  the  call 
of  national  honour,  will  be  bound  to  expend  !  The  phrase  of 
the  diplomat  of  long  ago,  On  pent  toujours  trouver  de  V argent 
pour  faire  la  guerre,  has  been  proved  to  be  eminently  true. 

From  the  beginning  of  the  nineteenth  century,  when 
Napoleon  was  urged  on  by  his  convictions  and  ideals  to  bring 
the  world  under  the  dominance  of  France,  no  doubt,  as  he 
thought,  for  the  good  of  the  world  and  the  progress  of  civilisa- 
tion, racially-national  ideals  took  conscious  shape  in  the 
minds  of  enthusiastic  patriots  in  the  form  of  Pan -Hellenism, 
Pan-Slavism,  ending  in  the  most  nefarious  and  powerful 
formulation  of  Pan-Germanism.  Racial  and  religious  ideals 
were,  and  are,  infiltrated  more  or  less  consciously  and  avowedly 
with  material,  industrial  and  commercial  interests.  There 
was  a  short  period  when  Anglo-Saxonism  formed  the  ideals 
of  some.  During  the  Spanish-American  War  I  pointed  out 
the  dangers,  both  for  the  United  States  and  for  Great  Britain 


446  APPENDIX 

and  for  the  relations  between  the  two,  of  such  a  conception  ; 
and,  in  replacing  for  the  phrase  Anglo-Saxon  Alliance  that 
of  English-speaking  Brotherhood,  I  insisted  upon  the  fact 
that  an  understanding  and  friendship  of  all  the  English-speak- 
ing peoples  would  be  practically  the  safest  means  of  securing 
peace  and  co-operation  between  all  the  civilised  nations  of 
whatever  race,  religion  and  language.  But  "self-determina- 
tion "  has  proved  a  two-edged  sword.  The  rivalries  and  clash- 
ing of  interests,  acting  on  the  soil  so  fertile  in  racial  prejudice 
and  animosities  in  the  south-east  of  Europe  among  the  recon- 
stituted smaller  nationalities,  are,  and  will  be,  as  they  have 
ever  been,  sources  of  unrest  and  conflict.  The  Powers  of 
Central  Europe,  lying  exhausted  and  maimed  in  the  sullen 
and  intense  resentment  of  the  vanquished,  will  in  the  future  be 
ready  to  use  the  conflicts  of  the  opposed  nationalities,  as  well 
as  the  complications  and  contentions  between  the  greater  and 
more  remote  Powers,  to  widen  the  circle  of  dissension  and  war. 
Nay,  as  is  foreshadowed  by  the  writer  already  quoted,  and 
as  I  pointed  out  in  1918,  the  day  may  come  when  Pan- 
Europeanism  will  stand  opposed  and  armed  facing  Pan- 
Americanism.  It  is  more  than  merely  conceivable  that  these 
two  great  continents  representing  civilisation  may  be  brought 
into  internecine  conflict ;  while  the  organised  nations  of  Asia, 
acquiring  the  implements  of  modern  destructive  warfare, 
will  step  into  the  breach  of  the  fortifications  protecting 
Western  life  and  ideals,  and  swarm  over  the  cultivated 
fields  fruitful  of  so  much  that  supported  the  higher  life  of 
civilised  man. 

Quite  recently,  in  a  conversation  on  these  wider  ultimate 
aspects  of  international  relationships,  a  man  of  great  intellect, 
experience,  and  eminence  in  this  country,  an  avowed  opponent 
of  anything  in  the  form  of  a  League  of  Nations,  calmly 
enunciated  his  belief,  with  stupendous  intellectual  detachment, 
that  our  civilisation  was  doomed,  and  that,  as  had  more  than 
once  happened  in  the  world's  history,  it  must  go  under,  to  be 
followed  by  a  cataclysm  into  much  lower  strata  of  human  life, 
until  gradually,  by  long  social  evolution,  the  standards  of 
civilisation  might  again  be  raised.  My  answer  was,  and  is  : 
"  Are  we,  who  are  possessed  not  only  of  volition,  but  of  intelli- 
gence, imagination  and  moral  responsibilities,  to  sit  still  with 


AMERICA   AND   LEAGUE   OF   NATIONS      447 

arms  folded  and  to  do  nothing  in  face  of  such  a  danger  ? 
Is  there  not  any  alternative  ?  " 

Quite  apart  from  all  our  sentiments  and  ideals,  the  practical 
and  material  facts  before  the  world,  immediate  and  in  their 
ultimate  bearings,  force  us  soberly  to  consider  the  second 
alternative  to  such  arming  of  one  nation  against  the  other — 
i.e.  some  efficient  international,  or  rather  supernational, 
organisation  which  will  ensure  peace.  This  now  means  that 
the  League  of  Nations,  the  existing  Covenant,  be  so  modified 
as  to  leave  no  grounds  for  refusal  on  the  part  of  the  United 
States  to  co-operate  in  this  great  work.  It  means  the  modifi- 
cation or  emendation  in  the  constitution  of  the  League  of 
Nations  to  respond  to  the  demands  and  needs  of  the  civilised 
States  in  the  present  world-crisis. 

In  facing  such  a  problem  it  is  important  to  bear  in  mind  one 
general  truth  in  the  management  of  public  affairs  and  the 
organisations  dealing  with  them  :  It  is  frequently  found,  in 
deliberative  bodies  and, parties,  that  differences  concerning  an 
amendment  to  a  substantive  motion  create  stronger  antagon- 
isms than  differences  concerning  the  substantive  motion  itself. 
There  is  thus  a  danger  that  those  who  are  sincerely  and  com- 
pletely agreed  on  the  absolute  need  for  the  establishment  of 
a  League  of  Nations,  but  differ  on  the  inner  organisation  of 
such  a  League,  may  develop  stronger  and  more  effectively 
negative  opposition  among  each  other  than  the  fundamental 
differences  which  exist  between  the  pronounced  supporters 
and  the  violent  opponents  of  any  international  organisation 
of  the  kind.  This  contingency  must  be  borne  in  mind  and 
jealously  guarded  against.  However  strongly  we  may  feel 
that  the  present  Covenant  must  be  modified  and  amended, 
we  must  always  gratefully  acknowledge  the  work  that  has 
actually  been  done  and  the  momentous  step  forward  that 
has  been  taken  by  the  convinced  and  highly  qualified  initiators 
of  this  greatest  movement  of  modern  times. 

The  task  before  us  all,  and  especially  before  the  people  of 
the  United  States,  is  to  devise  and  to  establish  a  supernational 
body  which  will  meet  with  the  essential  demands  of  all  the 
leading  civilised  States,  to  ensure  complete  co-operation. 
Three  main  requisites  are  to  be  met :  Firstly,  the  modification 
of  the  Covenant  so  as  to  conform  with  the  constitution,  as 


448  APPENDIX 

well  as  the  established  principles  and  traditions  of  national 
life,  in  the  United  States,  as  well  as  of  other  sovereign  States  ; 
secondly,  to  command  the  most  complete  confidence  in  the 
impartiality  and  the  positive  equity  of  the  judgments  of  such 
a  supernational  body,  as  far  as  unerring  equity  is  at  all  possible 
in  this  world  of  ours  ;  thirdly,  to  ensure  the  greatest  possible 
efficiency  in  enforcing  its  decisions. 

The  Senate  of  the  United  States  has  taken  exception  chiefly 
to  two  articles  of  the  Covenant,  namely,  Articles  III  (with 
annex)  and  XVI.  Article  III  (with  annex)  placed  this  nation 
of  about  one  hundred  million  people,  in  the  very  forefront  of 
modern  civilisation  and  power,  in  an  inferiority  as  regards 
the  number  of  its  representatives,  compared,  let  us  say,  to 
the  British  Empire,  including  its  Dominions.  Article  XVI,  in 
certain  eventualities,  committed  all  members  of  the  League 
to  intervention  with  their  armed  forces  to  uphold  certain 
decisions  of  the  League,  which,  the  Senate  maintained, 
amounting  to  a  declaration  of  war,  is  contrary  to  their  con- 
stitution, whereby  war  can  only  be  declared  after  due  parlia- 
mentary deliberation  and  decision. 

Both  these  objections  can  be  fully  met  by  the  emendations 
here  proposed  in  the  organisation  of  the  existing  Covenant ; 
while,  at  the  same  time,  the  two  other  requisites  of  confidence 
in  the  impartiality  of  the  tribunal  and  effectiveness  in  carrying 
out  its  decisions  will  be  met. 

In  lieu  of  the  present  constitution  of  the  Covenant,  with  its 
Council  and  its  Assembly  and  the  complicated  arrangement 
between  these  two  bodies,  upon  which  we  need  not  enter  here, 
there  would  be  a  supernational  jury  with  a  more  equitable 
representation  for  all  nations,  and  commanding  to  a  higher 
degree  faith  in  the  impartiality  and  fairness  of  its  judgment. 
In  lieu  of  the  appeal  to  the  several  member-States  to  make 
war  on  a  recalcitrant  nation  or  nations  by  means  of  quotas  of 
their  own  military  forces,  this  supernational  jury  would  be 
provided  with  a  police  of  its  own  to  enforce  its  decisions  effec- 
tively. 

The  supernational  jury  would  be  composed  of  representa- 
tives from  every  nation  within  the  League,  in  the  ratio  of  its 
number  of  inhabitants  counted  by  the  millions.  But  there 
would  be  a  minimum  and  maximum  for  such  representation. 


AMERICA   AND   LEAGUE   OF   NATIONS      449 

The  minimum  of  one  member  would  be  assigned  to  even  the 
smallest  nation  admitted  to  the  League  ;  the  maximum  would 
be  fixed  by  the  least  populous  of  the  existing  Great  Powers — 
let  us  say  France.  Analogous  to  the  relationship  in  the  case 
of  the  Territories  and  States  in  the  United  States,  it  would 
have  to  be  decided  which  States,  and  when  those  not  yet 
recognised  as  fully  developed  in  the  political  and  social  organi- 
sation of  all  Western  nations,  should  be  thus  admitted  to  full 
membership.  In  any  case,  even  the  most  populous  of  such 
States  would  never  have  anything  approaching  to  preponder- 
ance of  representation  in  the  general  body.  Now,  this  super- 
national  jury,  following  the  historical  precedent  in  the  long 
and  consistent  evolution  of  English  law,  from  its  beginnings 
in  the  introduction  of  the  trial  by  jury  under  Henry  II, 
which  gradually  led  to  the  organisation  and  activity  of  the 
Courts,  would  not  be  a  legislative  body,  not  even  to  the  degree 
in  which  the  recent  Hague  Conferences  aimed  at  being.  The 
world  has  had  ample  experience  that  no  effective  sanction 
could  be  given  in  the  present  condition  of  international 
development  to  such  a  legislative  function.  On  the  other 
hand,  the  enactments  and  decisions  of  a  supernational  jury 
would,  in  the  course  of  time  and  of  political  and  legal  evolution, 
become  the  material  for  the  acceptance  and  the  codification 
of  such  binding  laws.  Nor  would  the  supernational  jury 
assume  the  character  of  a  supernational  court  of  judges  to 
administer  the  law  which  in  reality  does  not  exist  as  law.  It 
would  simply  be  a  tribunal  of  equity.  The  representatives 
of  each  nation  would  not  necessarily  be  jurists  at  all,  however 
much  each  of  the  litigants  with  their  cases  and  pleadings 
would  be  in  the  hands  of  competent  jurists,  and  however 
strictly  the  presiding  official  of  the  jury  would  maintain  all 
the  strict  and  perfect  procedure  of  legal  evidence  with  which 
he  would  have  to  be  fully  acquainted  as  a  jurist.  But  these 
jurors  would  not  be  chosen  at  haphazard  from  among  all 
citizens  possessing  in  every  variety  of  degree  the  intellectual 
and  moral  qualifications  to  judge  with  fairness  ;  but  would 
have,  as  their  chief  and  clearly  manifest  qualification,  that 
intellectual  superiority  of  mind  and  experience  of  life,  as  well 
as  that  record  of  uprightness  and  of  honourableness  of  moral 
character,  which  would,  as  it  were,  make  them  the  most 

30 


450  APPENDIX 

competent  experts  in  administering  equity.  They  would  thus 
be  chosen  from  within  each  nation  among  those  citizens  of 
eminence  who,  on  the  face  of  it,  represent  to  the  highest  degree 
such  intellectual  and  moral  qualities.  Above  all,  they  would 
not  be  the  immediate  members  of  Governmental  administra- 
tion, essentially  associated  with  furthering  the  separate 
interests  of  that  nation  or  the  party  in  power  for  the  time  being. 
In  any  case,  when  the  representatives  in  a  League  of  Nations 
each  stand  for  the  conflicting  interests  of  their  own  State  and 
country,  the  deliberations  of  the  League  would  be  analogous 
to  those  in  the  conflicting  life  of  national  party  government. 
So  far  from  ensuring  stability  and  peace,  they  would  produce 
constant  change  and  strife,  and  would  certainly  not  command 
the  absolute  faith  in  the  equity  of  their  deliberations,  not  only 
in  the  contestant  parties,  but  among  all  neutral  members  of 
the  League. 

The  jurors  would  therefore  not  be  sent  with  any  mandate  to 
uphold  the  interests  of  their  own  State  or  country,  but  would, 
on  the  contrary,  divest  themselves  of  any  approach  to  such 
aims  and  be  biased  in  judgment  as  little  as  any  judge  is  now 
supposed  to  be  influenced  by  his  local  origin,  residence,  or  his 
associations  in  locality  and  consanguinity.  By  the  most 
solemn  and  impressive  formality  they  would  declare,  upon 
accepting  this  high  office,  that  they  will  in  no  way  be  biased 
by  their  national  interests,  but  will  only  be  guided  by  the  one 
endeavour — to  administer  absolute  justice.  As  men  of  the 
world  they  would  even,  in  cases  that  might  not  be  considered 
strictly  justiciable,  be  the  best  conceivable  authorities  to  decide, 
with  wisdom  and  fairness,  the  most  complicated  cases  in  which 
no  clear  decision,  wholly  justiciable,  can  be  expected.  Both 
parties  would  adduce  all  abstract  and  concrete  reasons  in 
relation  to  their  national  life  and  prosperity  in  appealing  to 
the  wisdom  and  fairness  of  such  a  select  body  of  men  endowed 
with  common  sense,  as  well  as  intelligence,  fairness  and  tact. 
These  questions  might  arise  in  connection  with  immigration, 
regulation  of  finance,  industry,  commerce,  etc. 

At  present  there  exists  no  definite  body  for  the  appointment 
of  such  representatives  by  each  State.  But  I  am  convinced 
that  a  completely  satisfactory  method  can  be  easily  devised 
in  each  country.  At  all  events,  such  a  body  would,  in  this 


AMERICA   AND   LEAGUE   OF   NATIONS      451 

imperfect  world  of  ours,  approach  nearest  to  guaranteeing 
impartiality  and  would  command  more  confidence  than  any 
other  body  which  we  can  conceive. 

One  word  about  the  police  force.  Following  on  relative 
disarmament,  an  international  police  force  of  the  most  effective 
order  in  respect  of  modern  warfare  (military,  naval  and  aerial), 
consisting,  not  of  quotas  from  separate  nationalities,  but  of 
one  complete  force  enlisted  from  those  who  naturally  and  by 
preference  choose  the  profession  of  arms,  would  concentrate 
at  the  seat  of  the  supernational  tribunal,  under  its  immediate 
sovereignty,  administered  by  sub-committees  and  chosen 
officials.  There  would  also  be  local  centres  in  various  parts 
of  the  world,  brought  into  immediate  touch  with  headquarters 
by  means  of  wireless  telegraphy,  to  act  with  promptness  when 
any  necessity  of  enforcing  the  decisions  of  the  tribunal  arose. 
From  the  economical  point  of  view  the  cost  of  armament  for 
each  nation,  following  the  modern  industrial  precedent  of 
"  pooling,"  would  be  reduced  to  a  minimum. 

With  the  sanction  given  by  all  sovereign  States  to  this  super- 
national  body  for  the  settlement  of  purely  international  affairs, 
there  would  be  no  incursion  into  the  sovereignty  of  any  state  in 
its  internal  affairs,  with  two  exceptions.  First,  that  the  people 
of  every  nation  be  informed  of  all  decisions  and  pronounce- 
ments of  the  tribunal,  and  that  errors  and  deliberate  misstate- 
ments  published  in  any  State  be  effectively  contradicted  and, 
secondly,  that  the  accredited  agents  of  the  tribunal  in  each 
State  effectively  guard  against  clandestine  armament  of  such 
a  State,  so  that  immediate  steps  could  be  taken  to  suppress 
any  prospective  disturbance  of  the  peace.  These  two  con- 
ditions are  essential  to  the  practical  working  of  such  a  scheme. 

It  will  also  be  realised  that  in  the  distant  future  the  invasion 
of  civilised  countries  by  vastly  superior  hordes  of  inferior 
nationalities  would  be  efficiently  counteracted.  For  the 
claims  of  such  nationalities  would  be  met  with  fairness,  even 
in  the  most  complicated  cases,  demanding  the  highest  wisdom 
and  equity.  Initial  grievances  and  suspicion  would  be  re- 
moved from  the  outset,  while  the  united  forces  of  civilised 
nations  would  be  concentrated  in  their  moral  adhesion  to  the 
decisions  of  a  supernational  body  uniting  them  all.  Mean- 
while, the  adjustment  of  immediate  problems  by  agreement 


452  APPENDIX 

between  a  group  of  leading  Powers,  such  as  the  understanding 
on  naval  armaments,  advocated  by  the  writer  of  the  article 
in  the  Metropolitan  Magazine,  on  the  part  of  Great  Britain, 
the  United  States  and  Japan,  might  pave  the  way  to  further 
and  more  thoroughly  and  universally  organised  understanding 
in  an  efficient  League  of  Nations. 

National  Service  with  intensive  armament  or  an  effective 
League  of  Nations — there  is  no  other  alternative. 

The  real  decision  at  this  moment  lies  with  the  United  States. 
The  World-Hercules  now  stands  blindfolded  in  his  strength 
between  Irene  and  Bellona.  It  rests  with  America  to  which  of 
the  two  goddesses  she  will  turn  him  for  guidance. 


INDEX 


Absent-mindedness,  90,  107 

Achilles,  Homeric  Shield  of,  139 

Actions,  directed  by  an  image,  90  ; 
premeditated,  92  note  ;  reflex, 
25,  50,  89 

Acts  and  Things,  Duty  to,  313-316 

Admiration,  the  term,  63  ;  influ- 
ence of,  64 

"  ^Esthetic  Element  in  the  Edu- 
cation of  the  Individual  and 
of  the  Nation,"  275  note 

^Esthetic  instinct,  3  ;  a  Primacy, 
4  ;  objective  in  character,  5  ; 
origin  and  development,  6,  10, 
30,  87  ;  selection  of  works  of 
nature,  8  ;  view-point,  9  ;  per- 
ception of  symmetry,  12,  17, 
19  ;  in  the  lower  organisms,  31  ; 
influence  on  the  perceptive 
senses,  52  ;  dominance  in  cul- 
tured life,  75,  80-83,  87,  268  ; 
forms  of  sense-pleasures,  126; 
selective  activity  of  man,  132-6 

Esthetics,  the  term,  3  ;  objects, 
5,  8  ;  study  of,  6  ;  principles,  100 
note,  123,  124,  268  ;  analogous 
to  ethics,  277 

Afferent  receptivity  of  stimuli,  34 

Agatharchos,  203 

Aglaophon,  200 

Alcamenes,  186 

America  and  the  League  of 
Nations,  444-452 

Amiens  Cathedral,   121 

Anatomy,  115 

Animals,  sense-perception,  30 ; 
nervous  system,  37  ;  dualistic 
organs,  44  ;  effect  of  light  on, 
45-48  ;  movements,  139  ;  modi- 
fication of  the  type,  178 

Anthemion  pattern  in  Greek  Art, 

150 

Anthropology,  115 
Anzengraber,  241 
Apelles,  pictures,  205,  206 
Aphid,  the,  45 


Apollodorus,  199  ;  scene-painting, 

203 ;  picture  of  Ajax,  204 
Apple,  form  and  colour,  71-73 ; 

eating  an,  91 
Arabesque,  150 
Archaeology,  115 

Architect,  the,  59,  158-161  ;  quali- 
fications, 1 60 

Architectural  sculpture,  191  ;  ori- 
gin, 56 

Architecture,  153,  157-161 
Argive  Herautn,  The,  185  note 
Aristodemocracy,    viii,    267    note, 
275  note,  277  note,  279  note,  291 
note,  336  note,  342  note,  343  note, 
405  ;     extract    from,    280-288, 
291-303 

Aristophanes,  The  Birds,  230 
Aristotle,  3,  121,  180  ;  Poetics,  231 
Aristotropic    principles,    90,    93, 

277.  373.  375 

Aristotropism,  32,  87,  99 

Arnold,  Matthew,  122,  313  ;  "  Self- 
dependence,"  228 

Art,  the  term,  3,  9,  94  ;  work  of, 
5,  137-142  ;  in  Nature,  52 ; 
pure,  126,  161,  221  ;  Dancing, 
137-140  ;  Creative,  142  ;  Music, 
142-146 ;  Ornamentation  or 
Decoration,  146-157 ;  Greek, 
150-154,  156;  Oriental,  150, 
151  ;  Egyptian,  151  ;  of  Archi- 
tecture, 157-161  ;  Applied,  161; 
of  Living,  264-270,  294,  396 ; 
principles  of  conscious  evolu- 
tion, 268 

"  Art  and  Industry,"  lectures  on, 
401 

Art  for  Schools  Association,  393 

Art  in  the  Nineteenth  Century, 
239  note 

Artifact,  53,  133 

Arts,  Literary,  218-221  ;  of  mean- 
ing, 161-179,  195,  221, 249, 252  • 
selective,  130-137 

Asceticism,  383 


453 


454 


INDEX 


Association,  88,  98 
Astigmatism,  14,  19 
Astronomy,  115 
Asymmetrical     forms,    13,    375  ; 

become     symmetrical,     17-19; 

experiments  on,  18 
Asymmetry,  13,  127,  373,  375 
"  Athene,    Parthenos    and    Gold 

and  Ivory  Statues,"  191  note 
Attic  school  of  painting,  206 
Aubusson  tapestries,  155 
Authority,  the  term,  107 

Bach,  J.  S.,  101  note,  121,  251 
Balance  of  Emotion  and  Intellect, 

24  note,  104  note,  122  note,  176, 

219  note,  381  note 
Balfour,  Rt.  Hon.  A.  J.  (now  Earl 

of),  404 
Ball,  Sir  Robert,  lectures  forGil- 

christ  Educational  Trust,  68  note 
Ballads,  255 
Ballet,  the,  261 
Balzac,  H.  de,  240,  241,  248 
Barbizon  school  of  painting,  217 
Barker,  Granville,  236 
Barrie,  Sir  James,  241 
Bataille,  H.,  236 
Beauty,   the  term,    10,    u  ;    the 

dominant    element    in    sexual 

affinity,  63  ;  in  nature,  262-264 
Beethoven,    L.    van,    121,    251  ; 

Ninth     Symphony,    255  ;  "  Fi- 

delio,"  256 
Behaviour  of  the  Lower  Organisms, 

32  note,  41  note 
Belief,  99 

Bennett,  Arnold,  241 
Beranger,  P.  J.  de,  lyrics,  222 
Bergson,  Henri,  301  note 
Berlioz,  H.,  251 
Bernini,  G.  L.,  portrait,  193 
Bernstein,  E.,  235 
Biologists,  investigations,  39 
Biology,  115 

Birmingham,  George,  242 
Blake,  W.,  lyrics,  222 
Bojer,  J  ,  The  Great  Hunger,  242 
Bolshevism,  341,  353 
Botany,  115 
Botticelli,  S.,  215 
Boucher,  F.,  217 
Bourgeois,  Leon,  404 
Bourget,  Paul,  242 
Boutreux,  Emile,  introduction  to 

"  La  Societe  des  Nations,"  xi, 

405,  426-428 
Brahms,  J.,  251,  255 


Breuil,  Abb6,  147 

Brieux,  E.,  236 

British  Journal  of  Psychology,  124 
note 

Bronze,  use  of,  in  sculpture,   182 

Browning,  Robert,  "  The  Last 
Ride  Together,"  169  ;  "  Flight 
of  the  Duchess,"  225  ;  "  Para- 
celsus," 228  ;  "  Romances  and 
Idylls,"  228 

Builder,  the,  153,  158 

Bullough,  Edward,  Bibliography 
to  General  ^Esthetics,  124  note  ; 
Recent  Work  in  Experimental 
/Esthetics,  124  note 

Bunsen-Roscoe    photo-chemical 
law,  45 

Burgess,  Rev.  W.,  282  note 

Burns,  Robert,  lyrics,  222 

Bury,  Mrs.,  225  note 

Bury,  Prof.  J.  B.,  xi 

Butler,  Sir  Geoffrey,  A  Handbook 
to  the  League  of  Nations,  402 

Buxom,  meaning  of,  176 

Byron,  Lord,  lyrics,  222 

Cable,  Mr.,  242 

Cambridge  Daily  News,  401  note 

Cambridge    and    Paul    Scientific 

Instrument  Co.,  19 
Cambridge  University,  lectures  at, 

ix,  xi,  401 
Capital,  Transportation  of,   343  ; 

increase  of,  357 
Carducci,  G.,  poem,  227  note 
Carritt,    E.    F.,    The    Theory    of 

Beauty,  168  note 
Castiglione,  B.,  Cortegiano,  297 
Catagrapha,  201 
Catskill  Mountains,  395 
Cecil,  Lord  Robert,   404  ;    "  The 

League    of    Nations    and    the 

Problem  of  Sovereignty,"  402, 

411 

Cell,  evolutionary  history,   35 
Centrobaric  organs,  23,   35,  49 
Ceramic  art,  194 
Cezanne,  217 
Chamber  music,  252 
Chartres,  Cathedral  of,  121 
Chemical  affinity,  48 
Chemistry,  115 
Chesterfield,    Lord,    Letters    to    his 

Son,  297 

Chiaroscuro,  199,  207 
Chinese  art,  216  ;    sculpture,  190 
Chopin,  F.,  252 
Choral  music,  252 


INDEX 


455 


Choroplastic,  139 

Christ,  teaching  of,  279,  374 

Church  music,  145 

Church,   Prof.   A.   H.,  Phyllotaxis 

in  Relation  to  Mechanical  Law, 

129  note 

Cicero,  202,  266  note 
Ciliates,  protoplasm  of,  36 
Cinematograph  performances,  236 
Classic,  the  term,  172 
Clay,  use  of,  in  sculpture,  181 
Clifford,  Sir  Hugh,  243 
Clouet,  F.,  217 
Colour  photography,  131 
Comedy,  232 

Communism,  theory,   353-356 
Community,  Immediate,  Duty  to 

the,  291-303 

Composition,  100,  118,  130,  152 
Concentration,  98 
Conductivity,  42,  44 
Conrad,  Joseph,  Lord  Jim,  241 
Conscience,  278,  309  ;    growth  of, 

in  man,  79 
Conscious  Evolution,  n,  93,  324, 

332,    372.    374.    38° ;     through 

Science,  109  ;    perception,  20 
Consciousness,     development    of, 

25-29,  49,  50,  87 
Constable,  John,  217 
Conventionalism,   process  of,  147 
Conviction,  99,  103,  106-108 
Convivium,  the  term,   266 
Cook,   Sir  Theodore,   The   Curves 

of  Life,  129  note 
Copernicus,  N.,  no 
Corneille,  P.,  tragedies,  230 
Coroplast,  182,  195 
Corot,  J.  B.  C.,  217 
Courbet,  G.,  215 
Cranach,  L.,  217 
Cross,  the,  57,  129  note 
Curves,  the,  24,  127,  149 

Dallinger,  Dr. ,  lectures  for  the  Gil- 
christ  Educational  Trust,  68  note 

Dancing,  art  of,  137-140 

Dante  Alighieri,  121,  122,  224 ; 
"  Inferno,"  227  note 

Darwin,  Charles,  63,  106,  121,  337 

Daubigny,  C.  F  ,  217 

David,  J.  L.,  215 

Day,  Elsie,  xi 

Day-dreams,  96 

Debussy,  C.  A.,  251 

Decorative  Art,  146-157  ;  funda- 
mental principle,  154  ;  reaction 
against  the  degeneration,  154 


Democracy,  306,  345 

Demonstratio,  104 

Diaz,  N.  V.,  217 

Dickens,  Charles,  240,  243 

Dickenson,  G.  Lowes,  The  Choice 

before  us,  338  note 
Differential  sensibility,   47 
Direct  Action,  364 
Divinity,  conception  of,   378-380 

note 
Dogs,    modification   of  the   type, 

178 

Don  Quixote,  239 
Door,  shutting  a,  91 
Douglas,  N.,  South  Wind,  243 
Drama,     the,     228-233 ;      Prose, 

233-237 
Driesch,  Prof.,  History  and  Theory 

of  Vitalism,  39,  48,  49  note 
Dualistic  senses,  14,  22,  87 
Diirer,  Albert,  204,  217 
Durham  Cathedral,   121 
Duty,  sense  of,  382 
Dynamic  symmetry,  128  note,  133, 

222 

Earthworms,  the  neurones,  37 

Echinus,  the,  8 

Economics,  116 

Education,  influence  of,  109,  in  ; 
system  of,  346-349 ;  main 
objectives,  381  ;  methods,  383- 
3^7,  396 ;  aptitudes,  386 ; 
limitations,  388  ;  specialisation, 
388-391  ;  development  of  the 
aesthetic  faculty  in  art,  392  ;  in 
literature,  394  ;  in  nature,  395 

Education  Acts,  284 

Educational  Epilogue,  381-397 ; 
Institutions,  lectures  on  the 
progress  of  science,  112 

Egypt,  art,  151,  216 ;  sculpture, 
181  note 

Einstein,  Prof.,  theories  of,  no, 
in 

Elective  affinity,  63,  90 

Electrons,  no 

Elementary  Nervous  System,  37 
note 

Elgar,  Sir  Edward,  251 

Eliot,  George,  Mill  on  the  Floss, 
240  ;  Daniel  Deronda,  240 

Emotion,  89,  98,  106 

English-speaking  Brotherhood  and 
the  League  of  Nations,  xi,  367 
note,  368  note,  405 

Entelechy,  39,  40,  49,  88,  178 

Eoliths,  134 


456 


INDEX 


Epistemology,  43  note,  44,  50,  94, 
95,  96,  115,  123,  268,  340,  373, 

397 

Equality,  339 

Essays  on  the  Art  of  Pheidias,  128 
note,  131  note,  177  note,  179 
note,  187  note,  191  note 

Ethics,  94,  116,  123,  275-330; 
analogous  to  aesthetics,  277  ; 
principles,  277-280 ;  codifica- 
tion of  the  laws,  280-289  ;  Duty 
to  the  Family,  289  ;  to  the  Im- 
mediate Community,  291-303  ; 
to  the  State,  303  ;  to  Humanity, 
304-309  ;  to  our  Self,  309-313  ; 
to  Things  and  Acts,  313-316  ; 
to  God,  316-323 ;  religious 
ideals,  319  ;  new  laws  of  moral 
conduct,  324-326 

Ethnology,  115 

Ethography,  the  term,  326  note 

Ethologist,  work  of  the,  326-330 

Ethology,  the  term,  326  ;  experi- 
mental inquiry,  328 

Eugenics,  Civics  and  Ethics,  134 
note,  178  note,  267  note,  275  note, 
325  note,  326  note,  333  note 

Eumaros,  201 

Euphranor,  206 

Eupompos,  206 

Eurythmia,  128  note 

Evolution,  374  ;    Laws  of,  330 

Examinations,  advantages,  347 

Expansion  of  Western  Ideals  and 
the  World's  Peace,  405 

Eycks,  van,  Hubert  and  Jan,  204, 
207,  215,  217 

Eyes,  accommodation,  14,  20 ; 
sense  of  the,  104 

Facility,  44 

Family,  the  relations,   359,   361  ; 

Duty  to  the,  289 
Fashion,  influence  of,  172,  177 
Fatalistic  evolution,  278,  332,  372 
Fiction,  237  ;    form  in,  238 
Field,  the,  129  note 
Fielding,  Henry,  Tom  Jones,  246 
Fischer,  Kuno,  vii 
Fishes,   images,   transmission   of, 

88  note 

Flagellates,  protoplasm  of,  36 
Folk-song,  222 
Forced  Movements,  Tropisms   and 

Animal  Conduct,  48  note 
Form,  harmoniotropic  instinct  in, 

125  ;  use  of  the  word,  126  note  ; 

in  nature,  127  ;  in  art,  166,  220  ; 


in    science,     166 ;    in    Fiction, 

238 

Forth  Bridge,  construction,  121 
Fragonard,  J.  H.,  217 
Frame  of  a  picture,  196 
France,  Anatole,  241 
Franck,  Cesar,  251 
Fransen,  novels,  241 
Franzos,  Emil,  241 
Fremiet,  statue  of  Joan  of  Arc, 

212 

French  art,  217  ;  Revolution,  344; 

sculpture,  190  note,  193 
Fresco  painting,  200 
Freud,  Dr.,  90  note 
Froebel,  Pastor,  sermon,  282  note 
Futurism,  171 

Gainsborough,  Thomas,  215,  217 

Galileo,  no 

Galsworthy,  J.,  236 

Galton,  Sir  F.,  106 

Garrey,  experiments,  48 

Gautier,  Th6ophile,  223,  256 

Gentleman,  the  term,  294  ;  prin- 
ciples, 295,  299-302 

Geography,  115 

Geology,  115 

Germany,  sermons  of  pastors,  282 
note  ',  system  of  education,  349 
note,  393  ;  Politismus,  333 

Gibbs,  Armstrong,  262 

Gilchrist  Educational  Trust,  lec- 
tures, 68 

Giotto,  215 

Giovanni  da  Bologna,  190 

Gobelin  tapestries,  155 

God,  duty  to,  316-323 

Goes,  H.  van  der,  217 

Goethe,  J.  W.,  121  ;  Faust,  122, 
228  note  ;  lyrics,  222,  227  note  ; 
Werther,  240 

Golden  Section  or  Cut,  57,  58,  129 

Gothic  sculpture,  193 

Gower,  Sir  George  Leveson,  xi 

Goya,  F.,  217 

Grammar,  102 

Greco,  El,  170,  217 

Greece,  monuments,  184 

Greek  art,  68,  128  note,  150-154, 
156 

"  Greek  Art,  The  Influence  of 
Athletic  Games  upon,"  177  note 

Greek,  evolution  of  the  dance,  139; 
drama,  140,  229,  230  ;  games, 
68,  137,  139,  174.  197  :  painting, 
197-206  ;  tablet-pictures,  198, 
200  ;  vase-painting,  200  ;  pain- 


INDEX 


457 


tcrs,   199-206 ;    sculpture,   128 

note,   181  note,   183,   191,   199  ; 

statue,  use  of  wood,  182  ;  period 

of  transition,    186 ;     gods   and 

heroes,  188 
"  Greek    Sculpture,    History  of," 

lectures  on,  viii 
"  Greek    Sculpture    and   Modern 

Art,"  179  note 

Grey,  Lord,  of  Fallodon,  404 
Grieg,  E.,  254 
Gunpowder,  invention  of,    174 

Habit,  formation  of,   49,   50 

Habituation,  177 

Hague  Peace  Conference,  407,  410 

Hambridge,  Jay,  The  Diagonal, 
128  note 

Hanlan,  the  sculler,  principle  of 
self-coaching,  381  note 

Harmoniotropic  instinct,  32,  40, 
50.  125,  373,  375 

Harmoniotropism,  43,  87  ;  in 
human  life,  52 

Harmonism,  Philosophy  of,  viii, 
4 ;  lectures  on,  ix-xi ;  prin- 
ciples of,  40  ;  three  forms,  41- 
43  ;  in  the  State,  82  ;  in  re- 
ligion, 83 

Harmonistic  Principle,  32,  34-36  ; 
influence  on  the  nervous  system, 
49 

Harmony,  the  term,  10,  n  ;  prin- 
ciple of,  28,  373,  374,  382 

Harris,  Joel  Chandler,  242 

Hart,  Harold  B.,  xi 

Harte,  Bret,  242,  248 

Hauptmann,  G.,  Die  Weber,  235 

Hawthorne,  N.,  242 

Hearing,  the  sense  of,  13-15 

Hebbel,  F.,  "  Gebet,"  256 

Heine,  H.,  lyrics,  222 

Henry,  O.,  243,  248 

Hesychius,  204 

Hilliard,    Nicholas,    miniature 
painter,  204 

History,  study  of,  115,  116 

Hobbema,  M.,  217 

Hobby,  value  of  a,  384 

Holbein,  Hans,  204,  217 

Holmes,  experiments,  48 

Homer,  121,  201,  224 

Honeysuckle  pattern,  in  Greek 
art,  150 

Honour,  conception  of,  295-299  ; 
definition,  295  note 

Honours,  conferring,  350,  352 

Hoppner,  J.,  217 


Horace,  222 

Horse,  in  motion,  164,  170  ;  modi- 
fication of  the  type,  178 

House,  unity  of  structure,  59  ; 
interior,  59 

Howells,  W.  D.,  242 

Hozumi,  Nobushige,  Ancestor- 
Worship  and  Japanese  Law,  322 

Hudson,  the,  395 

Hughes,  Mrs.  Watts,  105  note 

Hugo,  Victor,  223  ;  Les  Djinns, 
227  note 

Human  body,  single  organs  of 
sense,  22  ;  system  of  structure, 
36;  analogy  with  architectural 
forms,  56  ;  harmonious  relation 
of  all  the  organs,  65  ;  influence 
of  physical  and  mental  energy, 
66  ;  aesthetic  qualities,  135  ; 
typical  proportions,  172  ;  modi- 
fications of  the  type,  173-175 

Human  mind,  faculty,  4  ;  aristo- 
tropic  evolution,  93  ;  skin,  164  ; 
voice,  142 

Humanistic  Principle,  u  ;  Science, 
114 

Humanitarian  Provincialism,  307, 
308 

Humanities,  sins  against,  300 

Humanity,  Duty  to,  304-309 

Huxley,  Prof.,  121  ;  lectures  for 
the  Gilchrist  Educational  Trust, 
68  note 

Ibafiez,    Blasco,   A   I' ombre  de   la 

Cathedrale,  245 
Ibsen,  H.,  235 
Idealism,  24,  167,  169 
Imagination,    influence,    50    note  ; 

form,  89  ;   activity,  90 
Immotion,  89,  98,  106 
Impressionism,  171 
Indian  painting,  199,  216 
Individualism,  305,  341,  342 
Inequality,  341 
Infant,  birth  of  an,  26  ;  somato- 

centric  activities,  26 
Ingres,  J.  D.  A.,  215 
Instinct,  formation,   49,  50  ;    for 

self-preservation,  92 
Instrumental  music,  144,  250-252 
Integrative  Action  of  the  Nervous 

System,  41  note 
Ionic  school  of  painting,  206 
Irritability,  42,  44 
Italian   operas,    257 ;     schools   of 

painting,    216;    sculpture,   190, 

193 


458 


INDEX 


Jacobsen,  Niels  Li»ne,  242 

James,  Henry,  242,  248 

Japan,  ancestor-worship,  322  ; 
art,  216  ;  Samurai,  moral  stan- 
dards of  the,  297  ;  sculpture, 
190 

Jennings,  Prof.,  Behaviour  of  the 
Lower  Organisms,  32  note,  41 
note 

Jewish  Question,  The,  291  note,  295 
note 

Joan  of  Arc,  statues,  212 ;  pic- 
tures, 212-215 

Johannet,    Ren6,   letter  to,    422- 

425 
Jokai,  241 

Kant,    I.,    4,     121  ;      Categorical 

Imperative,  293 
Keats,  John,  223  ;  lyrics,  255 
Keller,  Gotfried,  241 
Kepler,  J.,  129  note 
Kerr,  Richard,  105  note 
Kimon,  201 
Kipling,     Rudyard,     242,     248 ; 

"  If — ,"  97  note,  228 
Knowledge,      systematised,      94, 

108-113  ;    systems  of  grouping, 

114 
Kofoid,  Prof.,  on  the  protoplasm 

of  single-celled  animals,  36 

Labour,    the    term,    353 ;     com- 
munistic conception,  353-356 
"  Labour  and  Art  in  English  Life," 

69-74 

Laertius,  Diogenes,  128  note 
Lagerloef,   Selma,  Goesta  Berling, 

242 

Lamartine,  A.,  lyrics,  222 
Lancret,  N.,  217 

Landscape  gardener,  161  ;    paint- 
ing, 206,  211,  217 
Language,  system,  102  note,  116, 

119  ;    use  of,  141,  220 
Lawrence,  Dr.  T.  J.,  Lectures  on 

the  League  of  Nations,  402 
League  of  Nations,  368,  369 
"  League  of  Nations,  The  Future 

of  the,"  lecture  on,  xi,  401-421 
Leonardo  da  Vinci,   215  ;    "  The 

Last  Supper,"  121 
Lepage,  Bastien,  picture  of  Joan 

of  Arc,  212 

Les  Lettres,  xi,  422  note 
Lessing,  G.  E.,  230 
Lewis,  Sinclair,  Main  Street,  242 


Libert6,  EgalitS,  Fraternit6,  306, 
336 

Liberty,  337~339 

Ligue  des  Nations,  La,  432 

Lincoln  Cathedral,  121 

Liszt,  F.,  254 

Literary  Arts,  218-221 

Literature,  Prose,  237-249 ;  fic- 
tion, 237  ;  novel,  239-243  ; 
portrayal  of  national  character- 
istics, 241-243  ;  "  Novel  with 
a  Purpose,"  243-246  ;  problem 
story,  246  ;  essay-story,  247  ; 
the  short  story,  247  ;  selection 
of,  in  education,  394 

Literature,  study  of ,  116 

Living,  Art  of,  264-270,  294,  396  ; 
social  intercourse,  265-268 ; 
housing,  265 ;  dress,  266 ; 
food,  266 

Loeb,  Prof.,  37,  103  ;  Physiology 
of  the  Brain  and  Comparative 
Psychology,  38,  45  note  \  The 
Mechanistic  Conception  of  Life, 
43.  45  n°te  '•  on  the  effect  of 
light  on  animals,  45-48  ;  Forced 
Movements,  Tropisms  and  Ani- 
mal Conduct,  48  note 

Logic,  ii,  101-108 

Longfellow,  H.  W.,  "  Snowflake," 
227  note 

Lorrain,  Claude,  217 

Louis  XV,  King  of  France,  269 

Love,  the  term,  63 

Lutheran  Church,  sermons,  282 
note 

Lyrical  Poetry,  221-228  ;  the  folk- 
song, 222  ;  lyrics,  222-224  ; 
sonnet,  224 

Lytton,  Lord,  227  note 


Machiavelli,  Principe,  297 
Man,  origin  and  development  of 
the  aesthetic  instinct,  10,  87  ; 
perceptive  senses,  12,  52  ;  ex- 
periences of  nature,  54-56  ; 
observations  on  human  beings, 
56 ;  influence  of  aesthetic  ap- 
pearance, 58  ;  his  home,  58-60, 
134  ;  influences  of  daily  life,  61  ; 
training  and  education,  76-78  ; 
codes  of  laws,  morals  and 
manners,  78,  280-289  ;  growth 
of  his  conscience,  79  ;  selective 
activity,  132-136  ;  artistic  crea- 
tiveness,  146,  162  ;  modifica- 
tions in  the  type,  173-175  ;  a 


INDEX 


459 


perfect,  267,  277,  333 ;  social 
and  political  relations,  276 ; 
duties,  278-280,  301,  307  ; 
duty  to  God,  316 

Manet,  E.,  215,  217 

Mannheim,  Theatre,  393 

Mantegna,  A.,  215 

Marble,  use  of,  in  sculpture,   182 

Maseneld,  John,  poems,  228 

Masters,  Edgar  Lee,  249 

Mathematics,    n,    101-108 

Maughan,  Somerset,  243 

Maupassant,  Guy  de,  248 

Maxwell,  S.  S.,  45 

Meaning,  Arts  of,  161-179,  195, 
221,  249,  252 

Mechanistic  Conception  of  Life, 
45  note 

Mechanistic  Theories  of  Life  and 
Mind,  38,  40,  43 

Melodrama,  261 

Memling,  217 

Memory,  88,  98 

Mendelian  principle,  49 

Mental  energy,  67 

Metaphysics,  the  term,  39 

Metropolitan  Magazine,   445,    452 

Michelangelo,  189 

Milton,  John,  224 

Mimetic  instinct,  168 

Mind,  aristotropic  faculty,  90 

Minerva,  review,  89  note 

Moli£re,  121,  141,  234,  258 

Money,  influence  of,  351 

Monism,  24 

Monistic  principle,  41 

Montessori,  Dr.,  theory  of  educa- 
tion, 385 

Moral  duties,  codes  of,  78,  279-289 

Morphology,  115 

Moscheles,  I.,  390 

Moses,  teaching  of,  279 

Mozart,  W.  A.  C.,  Operas,  256 

Mud-pies,  182,  195 

Murillo,  B.  E.,  215 

Music,  art  of,  101  note,  120,  137, 
140,  142-146,  249-261  ;  Cham- 
ber, 252  ;  Choral,  252  ;  Church, 
145 ;  drama,  257  ;  instru- 
mental, 144,  250-252  ;  Melo- 
drama, 261  ;  the  Opera,  256- 
261  ;  Orchestral,  250  ;  Pro- 
gramme, 254  ;  religious,  252  ; 
Song  or  Ballad,  255 ;  vocal, 

143 

Musset,  Alfred  de,  lyrics,  222  ; 
lines  on  his  tomb,  227  note ; 
"  Nuit  de  Mai,"  389 


Myron,  the  sculptor,  186  ;  Quoit- 
thrower,  185 

Nationality,  conception  of,  366 

"  Nationality  and  Hyphenism," 
367  note 

Nations,  La  Soci6t6  des,  xi,  405, 
426-443 

Nations,  League  of,  368 ;  see  League 

Natural  Science,  114 

Nature,  art  in,  52  ;  beauty  in,  8, 
262-264,  395  '•  evolution  of 
form  in,  127  ;  freak  of,  53,  134  ; 
laws  of,  ii,  42,  48,  94,  100,  103, 
105,  121,  133;  the  Phaeno- 
menology  of,  207  ;  study  of, 
395  I  warfare  of,  53 

Neolithic  sculpture,   180  note 

Nervous  system,  origin  of  the 
harmonistic  and  aesthetic  in- 
stinct, ii  ;  evolution,  33,  38, 
49  ;  of  animals,  37  ;  integrative 
action,  41 

New  York,  architecture,  161 

Newton,  Sir  Isaac,  1 10  ;  Pnncipia, 
121 

Nietzsche,  F.  W.,  296,  336 

Night-dreams,  96 

Nikon,  201 

Norman-French  language,    176 

Norris,  W.  E.,  242 

Norton,  Charles  Eliot,  161  note 

Novel,  the,  239-243;  psy- 
chological, 240  ;  portrayal  of 
national  characteristics,  241  ; 
with  a  Purpose,  243-246 

Novelty,  the  Desire  for,  177 


Objective  perception,  20 

Ochlocracy,  344 

Oculos,  104 

Oddocracy,  345 

Ogden,  C.  K.,  History  and  Theory 

of   Vitalism,   translation  of,  49 

note 

Opera,  the,  256-261 
Oppenheim,  Prof.  L.,  The  League 

of  Nations,  402 
Optimist,  the,  beliefs,  53 
Optimum,  the  term,  32  note 
Oratorio,  252 
Oratory,  art  of,  219 
Orchestral  music,  250 
Oresteia,  233,  262 
Organ-sensations,  65 
Organic  symmetry,  210,  222,  252, 

278 


460 


INDEX 


Organisms,  higher,  35,  49  ;   lower, 

31.  49,  88 

Oriental  Art,  150,  151,  216 
Orientation,  regular,  35 
Ornamentation  or  Decoration,  Art 

of,  146-157 

Pailleron,  E.,  Le  Monde  ob  I' on 
s'ennuie,  235 

Painting,  Art  of,  193-218  ;  de- 
velopment, 194, 197  ;  the  picture, 
I95-I97»  J99  •  tablet-pictures, 
198,  200 ;  fresco,  200 ;  vases, 
200  ;  use  of  colour,  202  ;  scene, 
203  ;  schools,  206  ;  landscape, 
206,  211,  217  ;  variety  of  means 
of  expression,  207-210 ;  pic- 
torial harmony,  211  ;  various 
artists,  215-217 

Palaeolithic  drawings,  147  ;  sculp- 
ture, 1 80  note 

Panaenos,  201 

Paris,  Architecture,  161  ;  Confer- 
ence, 368,  408,  414 

Parker,  Prof.  G.  H.,  The  Element- 
ary Nervous  System,  37  ;  experi- 
ments, 48 

Parrhasios,  199  ;    pictures,  205 

Parry,  Sir  Hubert,  251 

Parry,  Rev.  St.  John,  Vice-Master 
of  Trinity  College,  401  note 

Passion  or  Mystery  Play,  252 

Pathology,  study  of,  65,  115 

Patriotism,  367,  369 

Patriotism,  National  and  Inter- 
national, 291  note,  338  note,  366 
note,  369  note,  405 ;  extract 
from,  345-351 

Paul,  Nancy  Margaret,  H.  Bergson : 
An  Account  of  Life  and  Philo- 
sophy, 301  note 

Pausias,  201 

Pearson,  Prof.  K.,  106 

Pedimental  sculpture,  191,  192 

Perception,    development    of,    87 

Perceptive  senses  of  man,  the 
higher,  12,  16,  21  ;  lower,  16, 
21  ;  influence  of  aesthetic  prin- 
ciples, 52 

Persian  paintings,  216 

Pessimist,  the,  53,  82 

Phaenomenology  of  nature,  207 

Pheidias,  121,  128  note  ;  character 
of  his  sculpture,  186-189 

Philippi,  Pastor  Fritz,  sermon, 
282  note 

Phillimore,  Mr.  Justice,  404 

Philology,  116 


Philosophical  Congress  at  Oxford, 
129  note 

Philosophy,  116 

Photography,  164  ;    colour,  131 

Physical,  meaning  of,  66 

Physico-chemical  laws,  42,  44-48 

Physics,  115 

Physiology,  115 

Physiology  of  the  Brain  and  Com- 
parative Psychology,  38  note, 
45  note 

Pianoforte,  251 

Picto graphic  or  narrative,  151,  168 

Picture,  the,  195,  199  ;  the  frame, 
196  ;  outline  composition,  210  ; 
element  of  harmony,  211 

Pindar,  222 

Plants,  principle  of  symmetry,  36 

Plastic  Arts  or  Sculpture,  179 

Plato,  92,  118,  293,  295,  308,  378 
note ',  dialogue  of,  121  ;  con- 
ception of  art,  168  ;  teaching, 

Play,  spirit  of,  67,  383 

Pleasure,  the  term,  3 

Pliny,  201,  202,  203 

Plutarch,  204 

Poetry,  art  of,  137,  141  ;   Lyrical, 

221-228  ;      subdivisions,     224  ; 

didactic,  227  ;   fusion  in  songs, 

255 
Politics,  94,    116,    123,   276,   331- 

372  ;  task  of,  334 
Pollard,  Prof.  A.  F.,  on  the  system 

of  trial  by  jury,  415 
Pollock,  Sir  Frederick,  The  League 

of  Nations,  402 
Polycleitus,  art  of,  185  note 
Polygnotos,   paintings,    199,    200, 

202  ;    use  of  colour,  202 
Poor,  revolt  against  the  rich,  357 
Postman,  daily  round,  69-71 
Practical  attitude,  93 
Pragmatics,  94,  123,  271-274 
Pragmatism,  40  note,  271  note 
Prehistoric  discoveries,  7 
Prejudice,  107 

Premeditated  actions,  92  note 
Problem  play,  235 
Production,  result  of  communism, 

353-356 

Programme  music,  254 
Progress,  conception  of,  93 
Proportion,  the  term,  n 
Prose  Drama,   233-237  ;     Litera- 
ture, 237-249 
Protogenes,  206 
Protons,  no 


INDEX 


461 


Psychology,  115 

Puccini,  G.,  La  Vie  de  Boh&me,  261 
Purposefulness,  39,  40,  49,  88 
Pythagoras,  10,  24,  128  note,  184, 
1 86,  319  ;  epigram  of,  103 

Quintilian,  202,  205  ;  on  the  prin- 
ciples of  sculpture,  184 

Racine,  Jean,  tragedies,  230 

Raeburn,  Sir  H.,  217 

Raff,  J.,  7m  Wold,  254 

Ranatra,  the,  experiments  on,  48 

Raphael,  215 

Ravel,  251 

Realism,  24,  167 

Reasoning,  98 

Redundancy,  the  term,  156 

Reflex  action,  25,  50,  89 

Relativity,  problems  of,  no 

Relief  sculpture,  191,  192 

Religion,  94,  116,  123,  277,  373- 
380  ;  the  principle  of  harmon- 
ism  in,  83 ;  influence  of,  281-286 

Rembrandt,  204,  207,  215 

Renaissance  Politique,  La,  405 

Renoir,  217 

"  Respublica  Litteratorum/'xi,  422 

Reuter,  Fritz,  241 

Reynolds,  Sir  Joshua,  217 

Rhetoric,  120,  219 

Rhythm,  the  term,  128  note,  253 

Rich,  relations  with  the  poor,  357 

Richter,  Hans,  conducts  the  orch- 
estra, 253 

Rodin,  A.,  189,  190 

Romanes,  George,  researches  into 
the  nervous  system  of  medusae, 

33 

Romney,  George,  217 

Ross,  Martin,  242 

Rousseau,  J.  J.,  217 

Royal  Academy  Exhibition,  213 

Rubens,  P.  P.,  217 

Rubinstein,  A.,  254 

Riickler,  255 

Rule,  Algot,  H.  Bergson:  An  Ac- 
count of  Life  and  Philosophy,  301 
note 

Ruskin,  John,  The  Work  of,  9,  207 
note,  219  note 

Russian  ballet,  261  ;  novels,  241 

Ruysdael,  J.,  pictures,  263 

Saint-Saens,  C.  €.,251 
Saxon  words,  degeneration,  176 
Scene-painting,  203 
Sceptic,  the,  82 


Scepticism,  history  of,  viii 

Schiller,  J.  C.  F.,  120;  descrip- 
tion of  the  Maelstrom,  227  note  ; 
Wallenstein's  Lager  und  Wal- 
lenstein's  Tod,  234 

Schubert,  F.  P.,  255;  Erlkdnig," 
256 

Schumann,  R.,  252,  255  ;  "  Sonn- 
tag  am  Rhein,"  256 

Science,  94,  108  ;  Conscious  evo- 
lution through,  109  ;  Human- 
istic, 114 ;  Natural,  114 ; 
position  of  form,  166 

Sciences,  Classification  of,   114 

Scientific  Investigator,  synthetic 
activity  after  truth,  117  ;  crea- 
tive work,  118;  exposition  of 
his  discoveries,  119 

Scientific  Studies,  special,  113; 
Truth,  exposition  of,  119 

Sculptor,  the,  task  of,  179  ;  see 
Sculpture 

Sculpture,  179-193;  development, 
1 80;  archaic,  180,  222  note ; 
materials,  181-183  >  tools,  183  ; 
principles  of,  184 ;  Period  of 
Transition,  186 ;  choice  of 
subjects,  187,  191  ;  the  Type, 
187 ;  Ideal,  188 ;  masters  in 
the  art,  189  ;  movement  in,  190 ; 
statuettes,  190 ;  relief  and 
pedimental,  191,  192 ;  archi- 
tectural, 191 

Sea-anemones,  nervous  system  of, 

37 

Selborne,  Earl  of,  350 
Self,  Duty  to  our,  309-313 
Self-consciousness,  23,  25-28,  49, 

50,  87 

Self-determination,principleof,367 
Self-preservation,  29,  92 
Selfish  character,  92 
Sense-perception,     20,     163-165, 

375.    397  '•    objective,    20 ;     in 

animals,  30 

Sentience,  phases  of,  25 ;  phe- 
nomenon, 40  ;  development,  43, 

49,  50,  87,  88 
Serao,      Matilda,     II     Paese     di 

Cuccagna,  244 
Sexual  affinity,  90  ;  instincts,  62  ; 

beauty,  the  dominant  element, 

63  ;    love,  63  ;    admiration,  63 
Shakespeare,  W.,i2i,  122  ;  dramas, 

234  ;  lyrical  poems,  227,  230 
Shelley,  P.  B.,  "  Ode  to  the  West 

Wind,"  223  ;  lyrics,  255 
Shells,  variety  of.  8 


462 


INDEX 


Sheridan,  R.  B.,  School  for  Scan- 
dal, 234 

Sherrington,  Prof.,  The  Integrative 
Action  of  the  Nervous  System,  41 

Short  Story,  the,  247 

Sight,  sense  of,  12,  163,  165 

Sikyonian  school  of  painting,  206 

Skin,  human,  164 

Smell,  sense  of,  16,  22,  126 

Smuts,  General,  404  ;  The  League 
of  Nations,  402 

Snyder,  C.  D.,  45 

Socialism,  305,  341,  342 

"  Societe"  des  Nations  centre 
1'Anarchie  Nationale  et  Inter- 
nationale," xi,  405,  426-433 

Sociology,  115 

Socrates,    118  note,   306,   334 

Somatobaric  functions,  26  ;  based 
on  the  harmonistic  principle,  28 

Somatocentric  organs,  22-24,  26, 
28,  35,  49 

Somerville,  Miss,  242 

Songs,  143,  255 

Sound,  sense  of,  163,  165 

"  Specialisation  a  morbid  Ten- 
dency of  our  Age,"  389  note 

Spencer,  Herbert,  219 

Spinoza,  B.,  106,  118,  121,  378 

"Spirit of  the  Art  of  Pheidias," 
179  note 

Sponges,  rhythmical  functions, 
38,  54 

Stanford,  Sir  Charles,  251 

State,  the,  332  ;  order  the  soul  of, 
82 ;  social  legislation,  287  ; 
Duties  to  the,  303 ;  the  Best, 
333  ;  functions,  342-345  ;  Hon- 
ours conferred  by,  350,  352  ; 
organisation  in  its  relation  to 
the  citizens,  358-365 ;  Inter- 
national and  Super-national  Re- 
lations, 365-372  ;  racial  distinc- 
tions, 366 ;  principle  of  self- 
determination,  367 

Static  symmetry,    128  note,    133, 

2IO,  222,  252 

Straight  line,  the,  23,  51,  127,  149 

Strauss,  D.  F.,  251 ;  "  Morgen,"  256 

Suberg,  Prof.  Reinhold,  sermon, 
282  note 

Suffrage,  extension,  339 

Suggestor,  107 

Supernational  Jury  backed  by  a 
Supernational  Police,  organisa- 
tion, 370,  415-421 

Super-State,  creation,  368,  411, 
4*5,  417 


"  Survival  of  the  fittest,"  93,  109, 

332,  337.  340,  374 

Swinburne,  A.  C.,  223  ;  dramas, 
230 

Symmetrical  forms,  13,  18,  375  ; 
deviation,  15 

Symmetry,  the  term,  u,  12,  28, 
127,  373,  375  ;  its  bearing  upon 
the  memory,  15  ;  pleasure  from, 
17,  19  ;  principle  of,  in  organ- 
isms, 35  ;  in  plants,  36 ;  in 
sponges,  38  ;  dynamic,  128  note, 
133,  222  ;  organic,  210,  222,  252, 
278  ;  static,  128  note,  133,  210, 
222,  252 

Symphony,  the,  144 

Symposium,  the  term,  266  note 

Synapis,  37 

Synthetic,  reproduction  by  ex- 
periment, 104 

Tablet-pictures,   198,  200 
Taste,  sense  of,  16,  22,  126 
Telescope,  164 
Tennyson,   Lord,   223  ;    "  In  Me- 

moriam,"  228 
Thackeray,  W.  M.,  240 
Theology,  116 
Theoretic  attitude,  94 
Theory  of  Beauty,  The,  168  note 
Things  and  Acts,  Duty  to,  313-316 
Thought,  laws  of,  94,  103,  121 
Thrift,  the  practice  of,  356,  361, 

362 

Timanthes,  199 
Titian,  215 
Tom-tom,  140 
Touch,  sense  of,  22,  104,  127 
Town-planning,  161 
Tragedy,  232 
Transportation    of    Capital,     342 

note,  343 

Tree,  growth  of,  55 
Triadic  principle,  41,  42,  50,  88 
Tropism,  26,  43 
Truth,  sense  of,  105  ;  conception , 

376«  397 

Truth — An  Essay  in  Moral  Re- 
construction, in  note 

Truths,  new,  research,  invention 
and  discovery  of,  116-122 

Tschoke,  248 

Turner,  J.  M.  W.,  217 

Tuscan  sculpture,    190   note,    193 

Tussaud,  Mme.,  waxworks,  168 

Twain,  Mark,  242 

Tzikos,  Pericles,  Minerva,  edited 
by,  389  note 


INDEX 


463 


Uexknell,  Prof.,  Leitfaden  in  das 
Studiiim  der  experimentellen 
Biologie  der  Wasserthiere,  41 

United  States,  constitution,  411  ; 
League  of  Nations,  413,  444-452 

Utilitarianism,  28 

Utility,  41  note  ;  connotation  of, 
29,  271  ;  articles  of,  148 

Vaphio  Cup,  scene,  152 

Vase-painting,  194,  198,  200 

Velazquez,  D.  de,  215,  217 

Verlaine,  P.,  223 

Virgil,  224 

Vitalism,  History  and  Theory    of, 

49  note 
Vitalistic   Theories   of    Life    and 

Mind,  38,  40,  48 
Vitality  or  la  joie  de  vivre,  65 
Vitruvius,  56,  203 
Voice,  the  human,  142 

Wagner,  Richard,  121,  251  ;  at  a 
rehearsal,  253 ;  development 
of  the  opera,  257  ;  Leitmotifs, 
257  ;  All-kunst,  257  ;  Meister- 
singer,  258,  260  ;  Tristan  and 
Isolde,  258  ;  Parsifal,  258,  260  ; 
Siegfried,  259  ;  Lohengrin,  259  ; 
Tannhduser,  260  ;  Flying  Dutch- 
man, 260 ;  Nibelungen  Ring, 
260 

Waldstein,  Dr.  Louis,  The  Sub- 
conscious Self  and  its  Relation  to 
Education  and  Health,  go  note 

Walpole,  Hugh,  The  Captives,  241 

Walston,  Sir  Charles,  dissertation 
on  the  relation  between  Kant 
and  Hume,  vii ;  lectures  on 
"  The  History  of  Greek  Sculp- 
ture," viii ;  Aristodemocracy, 
viii,  405  ;  "  Prolegomena  to  the 
Philosophy  of  Harmonism," 
ix-xi ;  "  The  Future  of  the 
League  of  Nations,"  xi,  401  ; 
English  -  speaking  Brotherhood 
and  the  League  of  Nations,  xi,  405; 
The  Work  of  John  Ruskin,  9  note, 
207  note,  219  note  ;  The  Balance 
of  Emotion  and  Intellect,  24  note; 
researches  on  the  Harmonistic 
Principle,  33-36 ;  lectures  for 


the  Gilchrist  Educational  Trust, 
68  ;  mathematical  studies,  103 
note ;  Essays  on  the  Art  of 
Pheidias,  128  note,  131  note  ; 
Eugenics,  Civics  and  Ethics,  134 
note,  178  note  ;  The  Rudeness  of 
the  Hon.  Mr.  Leatherhead,  247 
note  ;  The  Expansion  of  Western 
Ideals  and  the  World's  Peace, 
405  ;  Patriotism,  National  and 
International,  405 ;  The  Next 
War,  405 

War,  the  Great,  viii,  330,  444  ; 
result,  270 

War,  The  Next ;  Wilsonism  and 
A  nti-  Wilsonism,  405 

War-dance,  139 

Washington     Peace    Conference, 

369 

Watteau,  A.,  217 

Watts,  G.  R,  215 

Wealth,  transmission  by  heredity, 
360-364 

Weismann,  Prof.,  106 

Weyden,  Roger  van  der,  217 

Wharton,  Mrs.,  242,  248 

Whistler,  J.  A.  M.,  211,  215,  217 

Wilkins,  Miss,  242 

Will,  act  of,  99 

Wilson,  President,  policy  on  the 
League  of  Nations,  408 

Wireless  telegraphy,  48  note,  no 

Woman  Suffrage,  339,  345 

Women,  phases  of  historical  de- 
velopment, 175 

Wood,  use  of,  in  sculpture,  182 

Woolff,  A  Village  in  the  Jungle,  243 

Wordsworth,  William,  122  ;  lyrics, 
222  ;  "  Ruth,"  225-227 

Work,  spirit  of,  67,  382,  383 

Writings,  style,  219,  220 

Wundt,  Prof.,  vii,  33 

Xenophanes,  saying  of,  318,  373, 

380 
Xenophon,  Memorabilia,  334  note 

Zeuxis,  199,  203  ;    subjects  of  his 

pictures,  205 
Zola,   fimile,   243;    L'Assommoir, 

244 ;  Au  Bonheur  des  Dames,  244 
Zoology,  115 


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